At this particular end-of-year juncture, just a regular solo set by either Haley Bonar or Gary Louris would be noteworthy. Bonar spent a big chunk of 2014 on tour with a fully electrified band supporting her NPR-buoyed album "Last War." Louris hit the road again over the summer with the newer version of his old band the Jayhawks to promote reissues of their three 1997-2003 albums.

It was nice to witness both tunesmiths strip things back down again. However, Thursday's pairing of the two Twin Cities singer/songwriters at the Cedar Cultural Center brought them both down (or up?) to a new level of rawness. Each had to perform three of the other one's songs, as is the m.o. of the Cedar's Song Exchange series.

"It's one thing to play Gary Louris' tunes in your room," Bonar said during her opening set. "It's another to play them in front of Gary Louris."

She did just fine. In fact, Louris was probably only exaggerating a bit when he declared her cover of the Jayhawks' "Blue" "the best version I've ever heard." She played it on the Cedar's old, beat-up yet beautiful-sounding stand-up piano. That's also how she performed her own song "From a Cage," one of several "Last War" tunes that took on new life unplugged from the highly produced recorded versions (also including the title track and "No Sensitive Man").

After "Blue," Bonar returned to acoustic guitar for a perfectly desperate and fragile-sounding rendition of "Big Star" – the Jayhawks' "Big Star," not her own song of the same name. Louris himself came out and helped her with his "She Only Calls Me on Sunday."

Louris' set was loose and sometimes discombobulated, filled with a handful of new tunes that he plans to record soon (the L.A.-folk-sounding "Useless Creatures" was tops), a few favorites ("Save It for a Rainy Day," "True Blue") and a couple lesser-played gems ("Everybody Knows," "You Look So Young"). He meandered his way through a solo take on Bonar's "Anyway Rattlesnake" but fared better -- with her help – in "Kid October" and, you guessed it, her own "Big Star."

The pair actually matched up best in the encore, when they backed each other up on their own songs, "Kill the Fun" and "Tailspin." They finished on a playful note with one of the most infamously awkward duets of all time, the Frank and Nancy Sinatra love song "Something Stupid," a smart choice to end a wisely curated songwriters showcase.

The Song Exchange series continues tonight at the Cedar with Astronautalis and Mark Mallman. I seriously hope those two pull off a love-song duet, too.