In Summer 2017, bluegrass icon Rhonda Vincent and '90s country singer Daryle Singletary teamed up for an album of duets, American Grandstand. The joint project would turn out to be Singletary's final release; the artist died on Monday (Feb. 12), at the age of 46.

Singletary and Vincent were labelmates on Giant Records in the 1990s, and the two sang on each other's projects and remained close. As news of Singletary's death broke on Monday morning, his collaborator was one of many artists mourning the loss.

"Daryle Singletary [was] one of the single greatest singers who ever sang a song," Vincent says in a statement. "I loved singing with him. We shared a kindred spirit on and off the stage. I will miss him dearly."

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Although they both found success as individual artists, both Vincent and Singletary told The Boot last year that the release of American Grandstand was the fulfillment of a dream they each carried for a long time.

"We were in the studio singing and challenging each other," Vincent said at the time. "That was a defining moment. We knew there was some magic in our voices together. I would sing something different because of Daryle, and he would sing something, and we had this connection in singing."

Born March 10, 1971, in Cairo, Ga., Singletary moved to Nashville in the early 1990s to pursue a career in country music. He started out performing at open mic nights and working as a demo singer. After Randy Travis recorded one of the songs that Singletary demoed, "An Old Pair of Shoes," Travis recommended the aspiring artist to his management team, and they helped Singletary sign with Giant Records.

Singletary released his debut album, a self-titled project, in 1995; two of its singles -- "I Let Her Lie" and "Too Much Fun" -- reached the Top 5 on the country charts. Throughout his career, Singletary released six additional studio albums, the most recent of which, There's Still a Little Country Left, came out in 2015. He charted more than a dozen singles, including a third Top 5 hit, "Amen Kind of Love."

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