It’s a huge break in the music business: being asked to sing on a duet with a major pop star, and the song becomes a hit. But what became of those lucky musicians?

Trey Lorenz

Trey Lorenz was a background singer on Mariah Carey’s first tour in 1990, and background singer on her 1991 album Emotions. Carey gave him a solo on her version of the Jackson 5’s “I’ll Be There” for her MTV Unplugged episode (added in at the last minute when she found out it was customary for Unplugged guests to perform a cover). The song topped the charts, and Lorenz had a top 20 hit with “Someone to Hold.” And that was it. He returned to backing up Carey.

Sieddah Garrett

Garrett dueted with Michael Jackson on “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You,” the first single off of Bad, his first album after Thriller. The song went to #1, but Garrett stuck to her main career: songwriting. Among many things, she co-write Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” and lyrics for two new songs in the 2006 film adaptation of the musical Dreamgirls, for which she received an Oscar nomination.

Odia Coates

A soul and gospel singer, Coates was enlisted by Paul Anka during his 1970s comeback. She assisted on a number of Anka songs, including the #1 hit duet in 1974, “(You’re) Having My Baby.” Coates went solo in 1975, and had just a few minor hits, including a cover of ELO’s “Showdown” (#71) and “Don’t Leave me in the Morning (#91). Coates never had another hit, with or without Anka, and sadly died of cancer in 1991.

Marilyn Martin

A former backup singer for Stevie Nicks, Martin was taken under the wing of Atlantic Records president Doug Morris, who arranged for her to be featured on “Separate Lives,” a Phil Collins single on the soundtrack to the 1985 movie White Nights. The song hit #1 in November 1985, and Martin’s eponymous debut album with the single “Night Moves” came out soon after. It was a minor hit, but Martin’s albums sold poorly. She went back to being a backup singer, but left music in the 1990s. Today she’s a successful relator in Nashville.