REO Speedwagon’s Kevin Cronin recently sat down with Ultimate Classic Rock for a chat and expressed joy over Dolly Parton singing ‘Keep On Loving You’ on her ‘Rockstar’ album.
Cronin and Parton recorded a new version of the hit song together. When the interviewer asked how Dolly took the lines, ‘You played dead/ But you never bled/ Instead you laid still in the grass/ All coiled up and hissin,’ to a higher level, Kevin replied:
“[Laughs] I’m glad to hear that. I’ve always said that I love it… and this is not at all false modesty — I love it when real singers sing my songs. I was in Nashville in the early 2000s. Bekka Bramlett used to live in Nashville, and she is one of the most soulful artists you’ll ever meet. Her voice is just unbelievable with what she does.”
Reinventing ‘That Ain’t Love’
The rocker continued, recalling how Bramlett sang on one of his tracks:
“She happened to be there when I was cutting country versions of some of my songs for the publishing company. We have a song called ‘That Ain’t Love.’ It was never a big hit, but it was kind of a hit. I called up Bekka, and she came in and sang the vocal on this kind of country-ish version of ‘That Ain’t Love.’ She sang two takes, and either one of them would have won a Grammy.”
Cronin then discussed how he changed the band’s arrangement of the song:
“She took that song, and I listened to it, and I literally went back into rehearsal with the band and totally reworked the whole arrangement because of what Bekka did. She took that lyric, and man, did she sing the sh*t out of it. It was just beautiful. It really made the song. It made me go, ‘Oh. Yeah. Wow!’ I used to always think that as long as I put the emotion into the writing of the song… I never thought of myself really as being a singer, even though I’m the lead singer in a rock band, which is kind of dumb.”
Cronin’s Journey To Recognizing His Vocal Talent
The singer lastly added, reflecting on his experience of working with a vocal coach:
“But over the past three years, I’ve been working with Jeffrey Allen, who is the head of the pop vocal program down at USC. Through Zoom and otherwise, he’s been my vocal coach for the past three years. It finally is starting to sink in and I’m starting to kind of feel like, ‘Well, okay, I think I can call myself a singer now!’ I think I know how the instrument works, as opposed to just pounding it out and hoping for the best.”
In a November message on the band’s official website, Cronin also thanked Parton for making him cool again. He praised her ‘Rockstar’ album and noted that people enjoyed their duet on ‘Keep on Loving You.’ He mentioned that this collaboration boosted his credibility, similar to when he gained recognition in 2020 with ‘Ozark’s Season Three.
You can listen to their duet below.
