singing with dead people

Katie Melua is number one in the hit parade. Singing a duet with Eva Cassidy no less. Yes, the same Eva Cassidy who died in 1996. Perhaps I've missed something, but I always thought a duet was about more than two people taking turns to sing verses of the same song. There has to be some chemistry for a duet to work. Think of The Pogues and Kirsty McColl. Think of Brian Adams and Tina Turner. Like them or loathe them, they were singing in the same room together and working off each other. Of course Miss Nine Million Bicycles in Beijing isn't the first to profit from a 'collaboration' with a dead person (I'll get to the fact that this single is for charity mate in a minute). David Bowie and Bing Crosby, Luciano Pavarotti and Frank Sinatra.  Fine songs, fine performances, but duets? Hardly.

Dear Miss Melua, the number one selling British artiste around the world (I wouldn't make that up, I promise you), is donating all the profits to the British Red Cross. One would surmise that this is Katie's charity of choice. But what about Eva's charity of choice? I suspect someone robbed of life at the age of 33 might have preferred the profits go to cancer charities. Of course I'm only guessing here. The dead can't talk for themselves. They only sing.