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Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones.

Long Time Gone

By Norah Jones and Billie Joe Armstrong, from the forthcoming album Foreverly (Reprise); streaming at youtube.com

In the press notes regarding the lovely surprise alliance of Norah Jones and Billie Joe Armstrong, the former describes herself as "a sucker for harmonies and country music." Well of course she is, and so should you be.

The cleverly named Everly Brothers tribute disc – Foreverly works in two ways – is a touching he/she revisit to the wavy-haired harmonists' 1958 classic Songs Our Daddy Taught Us.

Included among the dozen slices of Americana pie is the weeper Long Time Gone, performed by the velvet-voiced chanteuse and the sparky pop-punkster with vocals close together like white on rice, and with a friendly honky-tonk piano to keep things from getting too sad. The supple style is timeless – good forever, one might say.

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