New album, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
Veddernarian
Posts: 1,924
That's right... And a month before the Led Zeppelin concert, Robert Plant/Alison Krause will be released on Oct 23. What an unlikely pairing. I've heard it and holy crap, they pull it off. If you're looking for Physical Grafitti, Part II, don't look in this direction. (Except the songs sort of sound like Black Country Woman, or Led Zep III). They are USA Bluegrass, roots music. Their voices compliment eachother well. Not for everyone, and in a message pit for a hard rock, grunge genre, many of you may have a closed mind for this kind of stuff. But anyway, I'll post it here in "other music" and here is a link for more info (including an 8-minute interview). As I say, I like it and it is cool that they experimented like this.
http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Sand-Robert-Plant/dp/B000UMQDHC/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-8306395-7712908?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1191027210&sr=8-1
EDIT: 12/3/2008: Already won 1 Grammy last year for the single "Gone Gone Gone, Done Moved On", nominated today for 5 more Grammy Awards.
Plant/Krauss back in the studio this January.
http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Sand-Robert-Plant/dp/B000UMQDHC/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-8306395-7712908?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1191027210&sr=8-1
EDIT: 12/3/2008: Already won 1 Grammy last year for the single "Gone Gone Gone, Done Moved On", nominated today for 5 more Grammy Awards.
Plant/Krauss back in the studio this January.
Up here so high I start to shake, Up here so high the sky I scrape, I've no fear but for falling down, So look out below I am falling now, Falling down,...not staying down, Could’ve held me up, rather tear me down, Drown in the river
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manic nirvana? come one, awesome.
EV 04/02/08, 04/03/08, 07/16/11
Which track are they playing on the radio?
Mighty Rearranger was such a gem!
"Call me Ishmael. Some years ago- never mind how long precisely- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world." Herman Melville : Moby Dick
I heard a demo copy. The whole thing is great. I never heard of Alison Krause before. Her voice is incredible. Would be totally incredible if she came on at the Led Zeppelin concert in November and did Sandy Denny's part in the Battle of Evermore. Some songs are like the Honeydrippers where you're rocking and swaying in your seat. Like the Fortune Teller song for example with Plant doing his great R&B stuff like he did on Money at HOB 10/5/05. Great guitar solo at the end with Alison doing backing vocals. Some of the songs are duets where they sing in perfect harmony with eachother. Thank God there is no call & response like Elton John/Kiki Dee, "Don't go breaking my heart". Please Read the Letter is the same song as on Page/Plant, "Clarksdale". Slowed down and with more instruments and harmony. It is almost an hour long. The thing goes by and it totally works. As I said in the original posting, wow, what an unlikely pairing. By the way, Plant sounds great and this Led Zep concert should be amazing. There were so many Plant sightings in Nashville last year leading to last March. I was lead to believe they did a song or two together on an Alison Krause album. This is really a treat. Maybe 4 songs have one person with no trace of the other. The rest are both, either duet or one lead, other backing. Album in total is probably 55-60% Plant, 40-45% Krause. Music is 100% roots, bluegrass, country, r&b. It's very cool.
i can't fucking wait
"Call me Ishmael. Some years ago- never mind how long precisely- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world." Herman Melville : Moby Dick
Amazon.com
Perhaps only the fantasy duo of King Kong and Bambi could be a more bizarre pairing than Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. Yet on Raising Sand, their haunting and brilliant collaboration, the Led Zeppelin screamer and Nashville's most hypnotic song whisperer seem made for each other. This, however, is not the howling Plant of "Whole Lotta Love," but a far more precise and softer singer than even the one who emerged with Dreamland (2002). No matter that Plant seems so subdued as to be on downers, for that's one of the keys to this most improbable meeting of musical galaxies--almost all of it seems slowed down, out of time, otherworldly, and at times downright David Lynch-ian, the product of an altered consciousness. Yet probably the main reason it all works so well is the choice of producer T Bone Burnette, the third star of the album, who culled mostly lesser-known material from some of the great writers of blues, country, folk, gospel, and R&B, including Tom Waits, Townes Van Zandt, Milt Campbell, the Everly Brothers, Sam Phillips, and A.D. and Rosa Lee Watson. At times, Burnette's spare and deliberate soundscape--incisively crafted by guitarists Marc Ribot and Norman Blake, bassist Dennis Crouch, drummer Jay Bellerose, and multi-instrumentalist Mike Seeger, among others--is nearly as dreamy and subterranean as Daniel Lanois's work with Emmylou Harris (Wrecking Ball). Occasionally, Burnette opts for a fairly straightforward production while still reworking the original song (Plant's own "Please Read the Letter," Mel Tillis's "Stick with Me, Baby"). But much of the new flesh on these old bones is oddly unsettling, if not nightmarish. On the opening track of "Rich Woman," the soft-as-clouds vocals strike an optimistic mood, while the instrumental backing--loose snare, ominous bass line, and insinuating electric guitar lines--create a spooky, sinister undertow. Plant and Krauss trade out the solo and harmony vocals, and while they both venture into new waters here (Krauss as a mainstream blues mama, Plant as a gospel singer and honkytonker), she steals the show in Sam Phillips' new "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us," where a dramatic violin and tremulous banjo strike a foreboding gypsy tone. When Krauss begins this strange, seductive song in a voice so ethereal that angels will take note, you may stop breathing. That, among other reasons, makes Raising Sand an album to die for. --Alanna Nash
Mojo
I am skeptical, but this does sound promising now. Always looking for some good chillin muzak.
"You damn well can't lick the system,but you can sure give it a good fondeling."-sleazy estate man(Hugh Laurie on A bit of Fry and Laurie)
"Judas Priest on a two stroke moped!"(Stephen Fry)
Woman, you need... a whole lotta banjo: ROBERT PLANT AND ALISON KRAUSS: Raising Sand (Universal) pounds 12.99: 5/5: The Zeppelin reunion? Big deal. Their singer's encounter with the diva of bluegrass is far more interesting
Neil Spencer
14 October 2007
The Observer
71
What took him so long? A few minutes of Raising Sand is enough to prove that Robert Plant could have escaped the long shadow of Led Zeppelin way more swiftly than via the assorted rock bands with whom he's ploughed plain furrows down the years.
Sung in tandem with country star Alison Krauss - the pair duet and provide backings for each other - Raising Sand is an album of deep, dark Americana, a scintillatingly stitched patchwork of country, R'n'B and singer-songwriters that represents what Plant describes as 'the America I have always loved musically'.
The album's genesis stems directly from that love - several years back, Plant persuaded Krauss to join him in a tribute to Leadbelly for the blues legend's induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Subsequently, Krauss suggested producer T-Bone Burnett (the force behind the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack) to oversee their collaboration.
Together with a blinding cast of players, the trio have come up with a record that refurbishes tradition with panache. The opener, for example, has Marc Ribot's echo-laden guitar twanging out a menacing blues groove for 'Rich Woman', written by one Dorothy LaBostrie. Dorothy who? Turns out she wrote 'Tutti Frutti' for Little Richard, contributing this gem to the obscure Li'l Millet.
From there the writing credits take off into Americana arcana, setting songs by Gene Clark of the Byrds alongside a new name like Sam Phillips, whose poetic 'Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us' is achingly delivered by Krauss against a spartan backdrop of banjo and her own fiddle playing.
There's lots more poignancy, not least on 'Please Read the Letter', whose appearance on the Page/Plant album Walking Into Clarksdale is well upstaged here, exemplifying Plant's more relaxed and engaging approach. It's a joy, too, to hear he and Krauss doing brother/sister harmonies on the Everlys' rocking 'Gone, Gone, Gone' or on Doc Watson's backwoods devotional 'Your Long Journey'. It's a partnership of odd equals, but it works.
Plant declines to showboat throughout. He can't resist a holler on 'Fortune Teller', the Sixties R'n'B warhorse on which his teenage self doubtless cut his vocal chords, but even on an ambitiously dramatised 'Nothin" by that bleakest of country muses, Townes van Zandt, his measure stays true amid a squall of guitar and sawing fiddle.
'I should have taken a lot more risks,' a reminiscent Plant told Uncut magazine recently. Belatedly, at least, here's one that's paid off handsomely.
DOWNLOAD ' Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us'; 'Nothin"
Plant, Krauss unlikely but refreshing team
Peter North
Freelance
13 October 2007
Edmonton Journal
Final
C3
Album: Raising Sand
Artist: Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
Label: Rounder
Rating: 4 1/2
Not as unlikely a pairing as we might initially think, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss have created one of the great albums of the new millennium with Raising Sand.
Born out of a deep respect for one another's work and a one-off collaboration at a concert celebrating the work of Leadbelly, the album shows that Krauss and Plant have much in common, particularly when T-Bone Burnett acts as the bridge between the two and the guiding light for this much-anticipated project.
Step back and think about Plant's marvellous 2003 outing Dreamland, where he bit off a chunk of traditional and contemporary folk music history and poured his molten silver voice into pieces by Bukka White, Jesse Colin Young, Tim Buckley and Skip Spence.
Then reflect on Krauss's ability to push--if not completely overstep--the boundaries of bluegrass, and paint bluesy spins on hard-rock ballads, and it's apparent the two are kindred spirits, even if Plant is a quarter-century her senior.
Plant's ability to once again pull in the reins on one of the most effectively animated and imitated vocal deliveries in contemporary music is the key to this session that pulls from a palette where deep blues brush up against rockabilly reverberations, dreamy country-rock etchings, and old-time country sentiments.
Burnett hand-picked the 13 songs, skimming the cream in the form of two Gene Clark pieces (Through The Morning Through The Night and Polly), Roly Salley's Killing The Blues, and the Everly Brothers' classic Gone Gone Gone.
One of the finest moments in Krauss's entire discography comes on yet another Clark piece from the Dillard and Clark era. It's as if she marks the tune with an elongated mournful sigh as Plant responds with a understated harmony that sails under the mix as if being beamed from another universe.
It's a rare combination when incredibly gifted individuals like Plant, Krauss and Burnett can come together and create something so refreshing, unique, stirring and heartfelt, and never once does the shadow of ego darken the mix.
Highly recommended!
Mojo
By Andy Gill
19 October 2007
Belfast Telegraph
Raising Sand (Decca/Rounder)
That couldn't really be said of Robert Plant, who has exhibited a healthy
interest in new sounds, from folk to prog to desert blues, in his recent
solo outings; but even allowing for his restless creativity, it's hard to
convey the all-round excellence of Raising Sand. Never mind the Zep reunion
– Plant should should think hard about extending this collaboration.
The seed of this project had its initial germination a few years later when
the pair first sang together at a Rock'*'Roll Hall of Fame tribute to
Leadbelly. Their voices have the kind of perfect harmonic and timbral
congruence that occurs very rarely in any genre, with Plant reining in his
naturally demonstrative flamboyance to fit snugly with Krauss's pure, high
tones. The effect, on a song like "Stick With Me Baby", is an extraordinary
intimacy, Plant's hushed entreaties allowing her lustrous harmonies to
burnish the lines to a sort of sonic satin-gloss finish. Graceful and
elegant, it's a blend comparable to that created by Gillian Welch and David
Rawlings, or even – whisper it quietly – the heart-rending duets of Gram
Parsons and Emmylou Harris.
Crucial was the choice for producer of T-Bone Burnett. He has furnished the
duo with simple yet sumptous settings that impose compelling atmospheres
while affording the voices ample space. Equally crucial was the choice of
material, mostly classy but little-known songs from composers as diverse as
Little Milton, Doc Watson, Townes Van Zandt, and Tom Waits and Kathleen
Brennan, nearly all receiving treatments that somehow manage to be both
definitive and transformative – not least in the case of the Page/Plant
number "Please Read The Letter".
The same can be said for two Gene Clark compositions, "Polly Come Home" and
"Through The Morning, Through The Night", which have acquired a deeper, more
haunting beauty courtesy of Plant and Krauss's respective solo leads, and
for Waits and Brennan's "Trampled Rose".
Sweet and stealthy performances of obscure songs like "Rich Woman", "Killing
the Blues" and "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us" inescapably bring to mind the
haunted sadness of Gram Parsons's Grievous Angel. There is no higher praise.
Download this: 'Killing the Blues', 'Gone, Gone, Gone', 'Polly
Come Home', 'Please Read the Letter', 'Trampled Rose', 'Stick With Me Baby'
Heavenly pair raise the bar
298 words
19 October 2007
The Daily Express
58
WEEKEND MUSIC BY MARCUS DUNK
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
ROBERT PLANT/ALISON KRAUSS: RAISING SAND (Rounder/Decca) . . . . .
ON THE surface, it doesn't much seem like a match made in musical heaven.
In one corner, you have Led Zeppelin frontman, legendary maker of musical mayhem and all-round god of rock Robert Plant; in the other, the gentle goddess of bluegrass, Alison Krauss.
Back in Led Zep's heyday, such a partnership would have had you worrying for Krauss's wellbeing. After all, there was a reason Led Zeppelin were known as one of the most debauched bands in the history of rock.
Maybe it's true that opposites really do attract - whatever the reason, this collaboration is a near-perfect partnership, with Krauss and Plant's voices blending beautifully as they come together on a series of lesserknown country, blues and folk songs.
With material chosen and produced by T Bone Burnett - the man behind the music in O Brother, Where Art Thou? - Raising Sand sees Plant and Krauss backing each other like a brother and sister vocal team, taking turns with the lead and harmonies.
From the gentle, dark quietness of Killing The Blues and Tom Waits's Trampled Rose through to the bleak, bluesy blast of Townes Van Zandt's Nothing, every tune feels like an epic emotional journey.
Plant puts aside his golden god image and lets the musical chemistry between himself and Krauss carry the album.
Not that Krauss is incapable of holding her own - on tunes like Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us, she's a strong presence, sounding like a downbeat Dolly Parton delivering gloomy news.
Despite these moments of darkness, this is an utterly gorgeous album full of atmosphere and charm. Do not miss it.
MUSIC: ALBUMS
GAVIN MARTIN
19 October 2007
Mirror
8
ROBERT PLANT AND ALISON KRAUSS
Raising Sand ****
Hairy old Led Zeppelin reformer Bob Plant and the lissom, lovely Alison? How, you might well ask, is that going to work? Like a veritable dream of melodic pop, country and desert rock in a winning combination where two accomplished experts lay ego aside and actually learn from one another. They strike gold with the rare beauty of Tom Waits' Trampled Gold and the eerie desolation of Townes Van Zandt's Nothin'. The Led Zep reunion will have some way to go to match up.
An odd couple makes magic
Sarah Rodman
Sarah Rodman Globe Staff. Boston Globe
23 October 2007
The Boston Globe
3
E.1
CD Review
"Raising Sand" is the stuff of which music lovers' dreams are made: an unexpected collision of two distinct but complementary worlds that transcend the sum of their parts to create something unique and mesmerizing.
Led Zeppelin main man Robert Plant and country/bluegrass treasure Alison Krauss. Who'd have thunk it?
Apparently they did. The mutual admirers have been meaning to get together for seven years. Better late than never. On "Raising Sand," out today on Rounder Records, there is no uncomfortable push or pull. Instead of seesawing between any expectations created by their previous output, both artists happily play in the sonic landscapes of famed producer T Bone Burnett, who has worked with Elvis Costello and Los Lobos and helmed the Grammy-winning "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack.
For his part, Burnett chose an intriguing set of off-the-beaten- path covers - from Tom Waits's "Trampled Rose" to Page and Plant's "Please Read The Letter" - chucked the original arrangements, and hired a band of like-minded mavericks, including always-inventive guitarist Marc Ribot.
This adventurous, three-to-tango atmosphere (four if you include the top-notch band) is evident from the outset as quivering guitars and distant percussion lay the groundwork for the tender yet spicy blues of "Rich Woman."
Here, as on almost every track, there is an intimacy to Plant and Krauss's vocals; they don't move side by side but are enmeshed, often in hushed or joyous choirs of harmony. That intimacy is enhanced by Burnett's painstaking placement of instruments - steel guitar, banjo, organ, various forms of percussion - not always doing what you'd expect, like the dark-and-dirty detour Krauss takes with her normally lyrical fiddle on "Nothin'."
The austere "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us," written by Burnett's ex-wife, Sam Phillips, at times feels like a raga and at times like circus music from a Wes Anderson movie. "Polly Come Home," sung by Plant in a controlled murmur - one of several silken modes employed throughout - is almost painfully erotic. Rowland Salley, Chris Isaak's bassist, contributes the dreamy, slow chug "Killing the Blues," which wouldn't sound out of place on one of his boss's records.
Each track sets a different mood - a lullaby, a seduction, a prayer, a remembrance - but adheres to Burnett's elusive but recognizable template of blending vintage rock, country, folk, and blues with a lot of space. That space gives his work both an earthy quality and something approaching the otherworldly without ever veering into psychedelia.
The only listeners who may be disappointed in "Raising Sand" are those who prefer Plant in full-on storm-the-drawbridge mode. The famous howl is mostly absent but several songs feature variations on his eruptive ululations. Krauss's ethereal soprano is in grade-A form and she works expertly to enfold his voice like an angel's wings.
On "Stick With Me Baby," a Mel Tillis tune cut by the Everly Brothers, Krauss and Plant play a pair whose union is doubted around town, but they decide to keep their own counsel. "Let them say what they may," they croon, "stick with me baby, we'll find a way."
On "Raising Sand," with Burnett's help, that's exactly what they do.
Caption: Alison Krauss and Robert Plant teamed with producer T Bone Burnett on "Raising Sand."
"You damn well can't lick the system,but you can sure give it a good fondeling."-sleazy estate man(Hugh Laurie on A bit of Fry and Laurie)
"Judas Priest on a two stroke moped!"(Stephen Fry)
Alison taught me to sing;Something for the weekend;Music;Interview;Robert Plant and Alison Krauss;Exclusive
Simon Cosyns
26 October 2007
The Sun
64
Says Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant, owner of the greatest voice in rock history. ROBERT PLANT. Alison Krauss. Raising Sand 5
ON paper, they sound like an unlikely pairing - the rock god and the bluegrass gal.
Admittedly they share a similar line in tousled blonde hair stretching below their shoulders but there the similarity appears to end.
One half is Robert Plant, 59, the man who emerged from the Black Country hills to sing primal blues in Led "The Hammer Of The Gods" Zeppelin.
The other half is Alison Krauss, 36, a woman blessed with a sweet, angelic voice, a fiddle player extraordinaire and winner of more Grammy awards than any other female artist.
Robert's in fine form when SFTW catches up with
him, imagining the headline:
"Gruesome hotel wrecker meets pre-Raphaelite maiden."
Alison chips in via a transatlantic phone call: "I think the mystery of it was pretty exciting. There was real intrigue in what was going to happen.
"I had tremendous respect for Robert, kn
The Zep icon is thrilled with their resulting album, Raising Sand. "I've been round the block, but I've never been round that block. It was a fine place to go," he maintains.
"I'm absolutely ecstatic because there's nothing worse than being stereotyped.
Alison brought such texture to my world. It was fascinating and very good fun."
Fickle
Though 25 million people tried to buy tickets for the Led Zeppelin reunion concert in November, Robert wonders how the fickle world of music listeners will respond to the Nashville-recorded album.
"People don't seem tohave much time toactually stop before theyare on to the next thing,"he suggests.
"If it's a success, that's great. But if it's not, I'll still think it's a success because we did it."
In practice, Raising Sand is guaranteed to stop you in your tracks, all doubts blown away by a few atmospheric bars of first song Rich Woman.
The album is a bewitching marriage of hearts, minds and talents. It plunders the great contemporary American songbook for inspiration, blending blues, folk, country and gospel into a unique and elusive place all
its own.
Robert accepts it's different to anything he's ever done before and says of his time in the studio: "We were just sitting back looking at each other, going, 's**t'. I mean she taught me to sing!
"I thought I'd probably been around too long but she taught me to sing delicate harmonies. I really had to think and learn about musical intervals. It was trial by fire but you can't tell because I got it. I got it. The first day I got there with an acoustic guitar she was saying you go from the fourth fret to the sixth and down to one. I was going 'What!? Well what about baby, baby?'"
Producer T-Bone Burnett's name may not be written in bright lights like the singers but the album's success also has so much to do with him. It's clear he brought singular vision to both song selection and making this scratch partnership fly.
But for Robert, the story of Raising Sand began "way back in the mists of time."
"I was talking to a guy called Bill Flanagan," he remembers. "He's a muse who drifts around VH1 and the music networks of America, part-rock 'n' roll historian and part-would-be desert entrepreneur.
"He kept saying to me: 'You know, with your voice, have you ever thought about singing with Alison Krauss? I'm sure your voices would be quite remarkable together."
It wasn't exactly the career move Robert had in mind. In recent years, he's been more commonly associated with mystical rhythms of North Africa than
the country twang of the American South.
He says: "My ideal is to go to the Sahara and learn to play the baritone ukelele but the time came when I was invited to do a show at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame to celebrate the life of Leadbelly (the great Louisiana bluesman)."
The notion appealed. "Throughout my life, from the very early stages in the folk clubs in Worcestershire, everybody was singing Leadbelly songs.
"I thought would be a good idea to try a duet so I contacted Alison. We had nothing to lose and everything to gain. We rehearsed in a hall for the Armenian residents of Cleveland, Ohio, and it was really good singing together." Their performance of Black Girl, a trad folk song made popular by Leadbelly, left the door wide open for future business.
Robert says he was "definitely aware" of Alison's music but not a scholar of contemporary American folk and country music.
He believes: "Music that relates to all the events that take place in American culture is probably better echoed by people like Townes Van Zandt and mid-term Bob Dylan than all the cheery truck stuff. I have an aversion to that but a real love of all the tales that are told."
If you delve deeper, there are abundant clues as to why this musical liaison is not so strange.
"Led Zeppelin was a myriad of different themes and structures," says Robert. "Even down to the humorous take on American country called Hot Dog (a three-minute hoedown on their final album In Through The Out Door).
"Since I was a kid, I've had an absolute obsession with particular kinds of American music. Mississippi Delta blues of the Thirties, Chicago blues of the Fifties, West Coast music of the mid-Sixties - but I'd never really touched on dark Americana".
So how much did Alison know about Robert? "I was aware of all the Zeppelin stuff from my brother," she says. "He would play them in his room and go 'I can't believe this!' He was so taken with them".
It was songs from Robert's second solo album, 1983's The Principle Of Moments, that struck a real chord with Alison.
"I was more aware of the current stuff when I was growing up. In The Mood and Big Log. I remember seeing him on MTV. Every time he would show up, he was something different. Otherworldly."
When they finally discussed doing the sessions that eventually became Raising Sand, Alison remembers the conversation well. "He was like, 'What do you wanna do?' and I was like, 'What do you wanna do?' So we talked about getting a producer."
It was her idea to phone T-Bone, who once played in Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Review in the mid-Seventies and made some fine, under-rated solo albums. She had worked with him on the multi-million-selling O Brother Where Art Thou? film soundtrack. Robert had no doubts he was the right man.
Alison says: "I've worked for T-Bone eight hours singing the same song and I'm still happy to do it for him. He has a wonderful way. He's very much into seeing how things go down naturally."
Robert became a big fan too. "When T-Bone was brought into the picture, I think both of us became much more confident. We had a third party who had a great overview.
"I was just a baby in their company because I was learning every minute of the day. I was thrilled. With T-Bone's humour and his knowledge, it was spectacular.
His song selection was so strong."
Another key factor was the hiring of some truly great musicians, notably Marc Ribot whose elegant guitar and banjo figures are all over the record. "They all knew the score with a kind of dry American South humour," recalls Robert. "I came steaming in with a Black Country twirl and they found me quite fascinating. It wasn't that they didn't understand me, just that my edge, my humour, was so different to theirs".
Fiddle
Of the 13 songs, T-Bone chose eight and Robert selected five: "the more rock 'n' roll things, Gone Gone Gone, Stick With Me Baby, Fortune Teller and Please Read The Letter (a cracking song he co-wrote for 1998's Page and Plant album Walking Into Clarksdale)."
The singers take the lead on some songs and combine brilliantly for two-part harmonies on others. Alison perhaps shines brightest on a tender, tear-stained reading of Tom Waits' Trampled Rose but, for her, the yearning Polly Come Home by Gene Clark provides a "real moment."
Clark's Through The Morning, Through The Night is also used on Raising Sand, a worthy testament to the man who had written lyrics for some of The Byrds' finest songs including Eight Miles High.
Robert brings a jaw-dropping performance to the expansive, world-weary Nothin' by Townes Van Zandt, the song that rocks out the most and finds Alison picking up the fiddle in dazzling style. He also improves on his original version of Please Read The Letter by a country mile.
Finally, it's time to reflect on perhaps the most extraordinary twist in this wholly rewarding chapter in the lives of two very different but compatible artists.
Robert and Alison are talking about playing Nashville's Grand Ol' Opry, the sequin-spangled home of traditional country music.
What will they make of "the gruesome hotel wrecker meets the pre-Raphaelite maiden"?
My dad wanted me to get it, he's a massive Led Zep/Robert Plant solo fan.
Anyone got any opinions of it?
there you are.
- brain of c
As of this reply, there are 37 customer reviews on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Robert-Plant-Alison-Krauss/dp/customer-reviews/B000UMQDHC/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_summary/102-8306395-7712908?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&customer-reviews.start=1#customerReviews
Mostly positive. There are Plant fans wanting this to be Zeppelin, and Krause fans wanting this to be Bluegrass. It's neither. The closest Zeppelin songs to the type of thing this has would be That's the way, Tangerine, and maybe the Honeydrippers stuff. It's like that. I listen to it, as it is, forgetting of each artist's pasts. For me, it play's very well.