Don Henley casts all-star guests for new country album

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) — When the Eagles' Don Henley started looking for guest singers to accompany him on his new country album, he compared it to casting for a film. "It's like reading a screenplay. Who would be the best to play this part?" Henley said. "I was extremely fortunate in that nobody turned me down." The all-star cast on "Cass County," out Friday, includes Merle Haggard and Dolly Parton, along with Miranda Lambert, Trisha Yearwood and Vince Gill. Henley kicks off the album with a killer cover of "Bramble Rose" featuring Lambert and Mick Jagger, who adopts a little twang in his voice and plays the harmonica. "I emailed (Lambert) and said, 'What do you think if the guy who sang the last verse was Mick Jagger?' And she emailed me back and said, 'Well, hell yes!'" Henley said. He wrote "The Cost of Living" with Haggard in mind. "We squeezed it out of him," Henley said with a smile. "He got a little cantankerous at one point. But he's allowed. He's 10 years my senior. By the end of the session, I was referring to him as 'sir.'"

When Henley asked Parton to duet with him on a cover of "When I Stop Dreaming" — a song she and Porter Wagoner performed together — Parton told him she normally doesn't sing so high. "I love it when she strains, when she sings up that high voice and gets a little hoarse," he said.