k.d. lang felt a "deep, deep connection" to the late Patsy Cline.
k.d. lang
The 57-year-old singer began her career as a country artist but admitted she had always "shunned" the genre, until she was given some records for her 21st birthday and appreciated the "direct nature" of the songs, which had a big influence on her own music.
Speaking to MOJO magazine, she said: "I was never a fan of country music as a kid. In fact, I shunned it because I thought I was cooler than that.
"Then the Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn movies came out and country was somehow experiencing this hip renaissance.
"On my 21st birthday I was given some Patsy Cline records.
"My initial reaction had been sort of ironic but then I started listening to those records and I started to realise the direct nature of country music, how it can enter you like a kind of emotional intravenous.
"Patsy spoke to me spiritually. This deep, deep connection.
"At the same time I was listening to Patsy I was doing sort of avant-garde folk and performance in Edmonton, and this vision arose almost spontaneously of k.d. lang and The Reclines."
The 'Constant Craving' hitmaker recorded an album, 'A Wonderful World', with veteran crooner Tony Bennett in 2002 and admitted she'd jumped at the chance because American standards are a "secret passion" of hers.
She said: "He's a couple of years younger than my mum.
"MY secret passion is easy listening. Traditional pop and American standards - I love that music.
"It's so tempting for me to go into that world but it's been done, I don't need to do it.
"But when you have one of the holders of the lineage asking you to join him, that was my green light into that world and I lapped it up."
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