Robert Earl Keen is getting a lot of help on his forthcoming album Happy Prisoner, due Feb. 10. The Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines pitched in on the new single "Wayfaring Stranger," which also includes guest vocals from Lyle Lovett and Peter Rowan. Nickel Creek's Sara Watkins and Danny Barnes helped out with instrumentation, and Maines' father, Lloyd, produced the entire album.

The father-daughter connection made the track what it is.

"He called her up, and she showed up, and it's incredible," Keen told The Boot. "It will make you sink to your knees. With people that are talented in any way, I'm even more taken aback when you're there and it happens."

Keen noted that this track has a certain easy feel to it.

"I've always had an affinity for music that I felt you could listen to in your living room," he said. "My mom liked the old hillbilly stuff, and my whole education in music started with bluegrass. I've been listening to it forever, I love it, and so I feel like I'm something of a happy prisoner of it."

His voice mixed seamlessly with Maines' alto provides a sorrowful chorus that exemplifies traditional country. The banjo doesn't focus much on picking in the true bluegrass style, but the whole thing screams old school.

"I've been listening to [bluegrass music] forever, I love it, and I feel I'm somewhat locked into it," Keen told The Nashville Scene (via The Boot) in September. "Even my own songs sometimes are formatted — not instrument-wise, but verse-chorus-wise — like that. So I feel like I'm necessarily a happy prisoner of bluegrass."

Keen released his debut, No Kinda Dancer, in 1984, and has pumped out a steady stream of LPs since. His previous four albums have all risen higher than one another on The Billboard 200, with 2011's Ready for Confetti reaching No. 66.

Check out "Wayfaring Stranger" below:

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