You never forget your first.
Back in April of 2011, Kelly Clarkson, the first-ever winner of the massive singing competition, American Idol, was welcomed back to the live stage to perform her hit duet with Jason Aldean, “Don’t You Wanna Stay.”
The song, written by Andy Gibson, Jason Sellers and Paul Jenkins, was the second single off Aldean’s “My Kinda Party” album (still his best record to date, in my opinion) and went on to become his fifth No. 1 song at country radio.
While Kelly Clarkson has been known to dabble in country music quite often over the last decade, she has never actually put out a full-blown country album. Still, I personally believe the pair put out one of the best duets in the history of country music. Other than Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood’s “Remind Me,” I don’t think any other mainstream duet has come close to topping it since its 2010 release.
With the subtraction of Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul here, the only original judge still standing (or in most cases, sitting) from when Kelly was crowned the season 1 winner, was Randy Jackson.
Aldean, who we all know CAN sing live very well but more often than not chooses not to, sounded pretty solid here, especially up against Clarkson’s near-perfect, powerhouse vocals.
Take a little trip down memory lane and watch the full throwback performance here: