It's a collaboration destined to make old-fashioned country fans grit their teeth and New Country buffs say "George who?"
Word is that new country star Garth Brooks is in the studio collaborating with country icon George Jones.
Brooks confirmed the news in a press release; he is currently cutting tracks with Jones, one of the most celebrated vocalists in country music history.
"We are having a blast," Brooks enthused in the statement.
"We're trying a lot of different things. When you have someone like Jones in the studio, you're tempted to put him on everything. He truly is what country means to me."
On the surface, the pair make an odd couple, and some country observers have often contrasted the two men's career fortunes.
Brooks made his reputation by injecting arena-rock swagger into modern country music, became one of the biggest artists of the '90s, and is credited with triggering the New Country boom.
Jones began his career as a honky-tonk singer in the 1950s with such hits as "Why Baby Why" and "White Lightning". He developed an impeccable sense of phrasing captured on such later hits as "The Grand Tour," "He Stopped Loving Her Today", and "If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will)."
Just as Brooks and his new school of slick country entertainers have come to dominate country radio, still-active artists such as Jones have been ignored by the mainstream country business (although he has been championed by the alternative country fringe).
But in recent years, Jones and Brooks career arcs may have crossed. After Brooks' humbling, bizarre turn in his pop guise as Chris Gaines, working with Jones could shore up Brooks's badly dented artistic credibility.
Jones, meanwhile, nearly died in a March 1999 drunk-driving accident near Nashville, and has had a tough time attracting attention from country radio. Getting exposure to Brooks's still-considerable audience would supply badly needed exposure to the mercurial legend.
There's no word yet on if or when the collaboration will see the light of day, or whether they are teaming up on a full album or just a single release.
