At first blush, Bill Kirchen was a bit leery about the prospect of doing a “duets”-style album.

“It actually wasn’t my idea, and I was hesitant at first, because I didn’t want to just call in a bunch of favors from the road,” says Kirchen, the red-hot country-rock guitar picker and Ann Arbor native who was a founding member of Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen.

“But then we figured out that we should do it with people I was friends with, or people I’d worked with over the years — folks who I’d been in bands with, or recorded with, or toured with, or just played with on stage at various times,” says Kirchen, who comes to The Ark on Sunday. “When that idea came up, I thought, ‘OK, that would be great,’ and before I knew it, the project was up and running.”

That project is “Word to the Wise,” Kirchen’s current album, which features guest artists Nick Lowe, Commander Cody, the late Norton Buffalo, Dan Hicks, Maria Muldaur, Elvis Costello, Paul Carrack, Blackie Farrell and Chris O’Connell (who sang with Asleep at the Wheel in the group’s early days). Sunday’s show is a CD release party.

Of the guest singers and players who appear on the album, one of Kirchen’s most regular associations (other than the Commander) has been the one he’s had with Lowe. Lowe produced “Rush Hour,” an album by the Moonlighters, Kirchen’s ‘80s-era band. Kirchen also played on three of Lowe’s albums, and did a world tour with Lowe in the mid-‘90s.

One of the highlights of “Word to the Wise” is the shimmering vocal duet performed by Lowe and Carrack on Merle Haggard’s “Shelly’s Winter Love.” “Nick said that he and Paul used to talk about how much they liked that song, way back when they were on the road together, in the ‘80s,” says Kirchen during a recent phone interview from his home in Maryland, near Annapolis.

On the song, Lowe and Carrack construct some winsome harmonies that recall some of the duets Lowe and former Rockpile bandmate Dave Edmunds crafted on their Everly Brothers covers in the late ‘70s / early ‘80s. “I just played guitar on that track,” says Kirchen. “After hearing those great harmonies, I thought, ‘I do believe you guys have the vocals covered on this one,” he adds with a laugh.

Another compelling track is “Man at the Bottom of the Well,” with Costello singing the verses and dueting with Kirchen on the chorus. “I wrote and recorded that one a while back and wasn’t sure I wanted to drag it out again, but then I realized it would be a great song for Elvis to sing,” says Kirchen —“I really wanted to get one of those old-school, rock ‘n’ roll-Elvis vocal performances from him — you know, that impassioned vocal where his neck veins are bulging.”

He definitely got that, as the track is indeed intense and soulful, with Kirchen cutting loose on guitar more than usual, delivering a turbo-twang solo that echoes with generous helpings of reverb.

The Norton Buffalo collaboration, “Valley of the Moon” is a poignant and bittersweet one, since Buffalo died of cancer not long after the recording session. “We didn’t know he was sick when we cut that track,” says Kirchen. “From the time he was diagnosed until he died was only a couple of months.”

Making the song even more poignant is that Kirchen wrote it a couple of years ago, while he was in California, on the way to the memorial service for another fallen musical comrade — Chris Gaffney, whose credits include a stint in Dave Alvin’s band, the Guilty Men. Buffalo, who was a prolific harmonica hero in addition to being a unique singer-songwriter, played beautifully on the track, to no one’s surprise. “I don’t know anyone else who could have played that part the way he did,” says Kirchen.

It’s also a pleasure to once again hear the rich, lovely voice of O’Connell, who was a key component of Asleep at the Wheel in the group’s early days. She dropped out of the music business for a long time, but has started gigging again in recent years. She and Kirchen deliver a stirring vocal duet on the Roger Miller standard “Husbands and Wives.”

“She is definitely one of my favorite singers, in any genre,” says Kirchen. “There is such emotional depth to her voice, but it’s a controlled emotion. She conveys so much feeling, without over-selling it, or over-emoting.”

And no Kirchen “duets” record would be complete without an appearance by his old pal and bandmate Commander Cody, who delivers his patented pumping piano on “I Don’t Work That Cheap.” Listen to Bill Kirchen "I Don't Work That Cheap" (MP3).

That song also reunited Kirchen with another old pal, Blackie Farrell, who co-wrote the song with Kirchen. “I Don’t Work That Cheap,” is a comical song, inspired in part by the bragging style that Bo Diddley employed on “Who Do You Love.” “Blackie and I started writing ‘brag’ lines, and they got more and more cartoonish, so we just went in that direction with it,” says Kirchen with a laugh. The title comes from a self-deprecating line by the legendary fiddler Johnny Gimble: “Don’t try to pay me what I’m worth — I don’t work that cheap.”

Throughout the disc, Kirchen uses his impressive guitar chops to give each song what it needs, whether it’s taut but supple fills, or letting ‘er rip with his speedy, mercurial runs on songs like “Time Will Tell the Story” or Farrell’s “Open Range,” which also features Farrell on vocals. As is usually the case with a Kirchen disc, “Word to the Wise” draws on honky-tonk, rockabilly, blues, boogie-woogie and Western swing styles.

Kirchen came up in the “clean-country-picking” school, so he resisted the guitar-slinger mantle for a long time. “I used to be uncomfortable with that, but I’m okay with it now,” he says. “People have come to expect it from me now, and they like it, and it IS fun to play, so now I just go with the flow and play whatever feels right.”

Kevin Ransom is a free-lance writer who covers music for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at KevinRansom10@aol.com.

Bill Kirchen performing live in Cleveland last December: