Lauren Alaina sings Babies Raising Babies with her brother Tyler Suddeth

Lauren Alaina has opened her new album STAGES with a duet featuring her older brother, Tyler Suddeth. The song is "Babies Raising Babies", and Country Now reported her account of how the recording came together.

STAGES is a 17-song album divided into three chapters: Stage One: The Dreaming, Stage Two: The Breaking and Stage Three: The Becoming. The first takes listeners back to Alaina's childhood in Rossville, Georgia, and the decision to audition for American Idol that sent her to Nashville.

"Babies Raising Babies" sits in that opening chapter. Alaina co-wrote it with Ben Hayslip and Matt Jenkins, and put her brother's name next to hers on the track listing.

Suddeth is not a professional singer. He sings in his church choir every Sunday and has joined his sister onstage at the Opry a couple of times, but Alaina describes him as the quiet one in the family, and says she soaked up all the outgoing personality in the house.

Her favourite moment on the record comes right before the second verse. She calls out "Sing it, Bubba," and he takes over. She says he is genuinely good, and that singing in church every week for the past couple of years has helped him with his stage fright.

The album also carries a duet with Kane Brown on "Never Been In Love" and one with Chase Matthew on "All My Exes". That Brown pairing was covered here in their reunion for the duet, and family and guest country recordings have been a running thread this year, including Kenny Chesney enlisting Megan Moroney for It Just Got Weird.