K.d. lang

k.d. lang, born Kathryn Dawn Lang, is a Canadian singer-songwriter who burst onto the country music scene, quickly making her mark for all to see. Following initial success within Canada with her Patsy Cline tribute band The Reclines, her 1987 album, 'Angel With a Lariat' received high praise, especially on college radio, for its mixture of traditional country with rock & roll. Her status on the music scene was cemented following a tour as a backing singer for Roy Orbison, who eventually chose her to duet with him on his hit single 'Crying', winning them both a Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration With Vocals 1989.

Her subsequent albums further explored a mixture between country and rock, eventually culminating in 'Ingenue', harder and rockier in tone than her previous albums. The 1997 album 'Drag' - with differing thoughts to its meaning of either the act of smoking or crossdressing - featured a collection of covers including Dionne Warwick's 'Theme from the Valley of the Dolls' and T-Bone Burnett's 'Till the Heart Caves In'. 2008 saw a release of brand new material on the album 'Watershed', Lang's first new music in eight years, and in 2013 she was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. In 2016 she started working on a collaborative project with Neko Case and Laura Veirs titled 'case/lang'veirs'. Labelled a Canadian-American supergroup, the trio accompanied their album with a tour across the US.