By Mikael Wood NEW YORK (Billboard) - Robert Plant shocked many by agreeing to play a one-off show with Led Zeppelin in November in London. But he isn't particularly concerned that his fans might be taken by surprise by "Raising Sand," his new collaboration with bluegrass bigwig Alison Krauss. "If people have enjoyed my career, then they'll know that not a single record that I've made since 1968 has had anything to do with the one before," the former Led Zeppelin singer said via phone from his home in England.
Instead, what vexes Plant is the idea that "Raising Sand," which is due October 23 from Rounder, will be the victim of the D-word. "The worst thing in the world is to say, 'Hey, these guys are making a duet album,"' he said. "A duet is normally something that's kind of sugarcoated and has a kind of saccharine quality to it.
This is nothing like that. These are visitations, really, where Alison will bolster me or I'll augment her. (Making this album) was like opening the bottle and out pops the genie that nobody expected.
" If that sounds like big talk, the album's big sound backs Plant up. Produced by T-Bone Burnett, the 13-track collection finds the two singers applying their considerable interpretative skills to a shrewdly selected set of American roots-music gems, including Gene Clark's "Polly," the Everly Brothers' "Gone, Gone, Gone" and "Trampled Rose" by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan. The sound is dark and groove-oriented, with rich guitar work by Marc Ribot and Norman Blake.
As Plant suggests, he and Krauss don't simply harmonize; rather, their vocals engage in a loose back-and-forth that creates what Plant calls "a sort of musical landscape." MEETING OF MINDS The two singers met and performed together for the first time in 2004 at a Leadbelly tribute at Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Inspired by an "inquisitivity about what it would sound like to blend two radically different vocal styles together," Plant suggested they collaborate.
"I had no preconceived ideas about what this record would be," Krauss said with a laugh. She suggested Burnett as a producer. "Robert was like, 'Yeah!
,"' she recalls. Krauss said "Raising Sand" started taking shape once Burnett began sending material to her and Plant for their consideration. "I remember thinking, 'Oh, my goodness, look what we have here,"' she said.
("I came up with some ideas, but Alison said I needed to be darker than that," Plant admitted.) Burnett said his criteria for selecting songs was simple: "I wanted to find stuff I could imagine them killing." The producer said they steered clear of chestnuts, preferring to tackle lesser-known songs that forced Plant and Krauss to venture beyond their comfort zones.
"Robert's interest is primarily in Delta blues, and Alison's is mostly Appalachian music. So my tendency was to give him the Appalachian stuff and her the Delta blues. By the end of the record, Robert's doing a Doc Watson tune, 'Year Long Journey.
' He's never gotten close to that kind of country music before." Plant, Krauss and Burnett plan to support "Raising Sand" on the road, perhaps with a tour in summer 2008. (Plant declined to answer questions about potential further activity in the Zeppelin camp.
) "We'll definitely be doing stuff not on the record," Burnett said. "There's too many fun possibilities not to." Plant added that he absolutely intends to make another record with Krauss: "Listen to how good it is.
You wouldn't want to say goodbye to that quickly, would you?
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