REO Speedwagon’s Kevin Cronin Unveils Unreleased Dolly Parton Duet

Kevin Cronin cut a duet of "Time For Me To Fly" with Dolly Parton, which will soon be released to the public. The REO Speedwagon singer dropped this news in a recent interview.

"I did another version... a piano oriented, a little down tempo so the melody and the lyric really comes out," Cronin said. "We called Dolly to see if she wanted to make it into a duet. She said yes. I've got a version of 'Time For Me To Fly' that is a duet with Dolly and me that we haven't released."

The singer sat down with Pete Ganbarg, who's won two GRAMMY Awards as a producer and music exec. They talked about the band's 60th year and how Hi Infidelity came together, swapping stories about some of rock's biggest hits that people still play today.

Cronin built the sound that packed arenas across America from the mid-1970s straight through the late 1980s. He wrote and sang radio favorites like "Keep On Loving You," "Take It On The Run," "Can't Fight This Feeling," and "Roll With The Changes."

Hi Infidelity changed everything in 1980. The album sat at No. 1 on the Billboard Album Chart for 15 weeks and turned them into musical giants. They were all over rock radio, they were filling up big venues, and MTV put them in heavy rotation.

"I feel proud of and blessed by the fact that REO Speedwagon has become an American institution," Cronin said. "I'm really proud of the fact that if you come to a REO Speedwagon show, your expectations will be exceeded. That's always been my intention."

Cronin also brought up recent meetups with the original guys, even though they've had disagreements. "We did prove that our history and all that we shared and the friendship between us kinda over-rided the issues that we've been having," he said. "I'm not sure exactly how things are going to shake out."