Robert Plant : Band of Joy

[sam_webmaster]

robertplant.com/news/robert-plant-band-of-joy-september-13th/

Robert Plant - Band Of Joy (September 13th)

06.14.2010

(Press Release) Robert Plant is back with his first album since 2007's six time Grammy Award winning "Raising Sand". Picking up where the critically acclaimed roots rock of "Raising Sand" – which sold 700,000 in the UK and 3 million worldwide, scooping the Grammy for Album of the Year – left off, "Band Of Joy" was recorded in Nashville with a stellar cast of musicians.

A timeless plunge into authentic Americana, the album was co-produced by Plant and Nashville legend and guitarist Buddy Miller. "Buddy's integral to this album, you can hear his taste all over the instrumentation," enthuses Plant. "Buddy's zone is beautiful, with a lot of reflections going back into mid-Fifties rockabilly, the singing fishermen and all the great country stuff, along with the soul and R&B from Memphis."As well as Miller, the Band of Joy is made up of multi-instrumentalist Darrell Scott, who provides the mandolin, guitar, accordian, pedal, lap steel and banjo lines, country singer-songwriter Patty Griffin who adds the main vocal foils to Plant's lead parts, while Byron House plays bass and percussion comes from Marco Giovino.

"Band Of Joy" features intriguing new interpretations of songs from a wide range of sources. Opening with a throbbing rendition of Los Lobos's 'Angel Dance', the album encompasses the glittering drone-rock of Low's 'Silver Rider' and 'Monkey', the Fifties-style country-gospel harmonies which transform The Kelly Brothers' Sixties soul classic 'Falling In Love Again', the desolate banjo-driven interpretation of 'Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down', the transplanted English/Appalachian folk ballad 'Cindy, I'll Marry You Some Day', and jangling blues imagery of 'Central Two-0-Nine'.

Robert Plant and the Band Of Joy will be touring the southern states of the USA this July, with more dates to be announced.

Robert Plant's most eclectic work so far, in a career that has constantly embraced the unexpected, it's an album which takes in continents of influence and oceans of emotional depth, taking the explorations of "Raising Sand" into bold new territory.

Band Of Joy will be released on September 13th.

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ROBERT PLANT BIO [2010]

When Robert Plant collected the 2009 Grammy for Album of the Year for Raising Sand, and a further five more for his work with bluegrass singer Alison Krauss, it confirmed what has been apparent, that Plant is one of the few musicians of his generation whose appetite for musical innovation remains keen.

Plant chose to explore the territory unearthed with Raising Sand, working with a new group of musicians named after the combo he played with, back in the Sixties. The new album Robert Plant – Band Of Joy features intriguing new interpretations of songs from a wide range of sources, including Mexican-American roots-rockers Los Lobos, British guitar genius Richard Thompson, R&B singer Barbara Lynn, Minnesota indie trio Low, Texan singer songwriter and now legendary, Townes Van Zandt, Appalachian banjo minstrel Bascom Lamar Lunsford. Crucial to the new project was guitarist and co-producer Buddy Miller, a Nashville legend to whom Plant grew close during the Raising Sand tour.

"During the tour with Alison, I spent a lot of time talking about music with Buddy. I found that I had no real conception of what 'Nashville' really is: it's a lot of different things. Buddy's zone is beautiful, with a lot of reflections going back into mid-Fifties rockabilly and all the great country stuff, along with the soul and R&B from Memphis, which is as black as Nashville is white. He can play like anybody from Hubert Sumlin, to Chet Atkins, to whoever you like. It's not just about picking excellent musicality, but the deep soul of it too. Buddy's integral to this album, you can hear his taste all over it."

It is Miller, whose brilliant harmonies and poised guitar fills has adorned Emmylou Harris's band for the best part of a decade, who recommended the musicians who make up the Band Of Joy. Multi-instrumentalist Darrell Scott provides the mandolin, acoustic guitar, banjo, accordian, pedal and lap steel complements to Buddy's guitar, with both players adding their voices to the harmonies that surround each song. Alternative country singer-songwriter Patty Griffin has interrupted her career to provide the main vocal foils to Plant's lead parts, while Byron House is one of Nashville's most in-demand bass players, with a CV that includes stints with Emmylou, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Jorma Kaukonen and The Dixie Chicks, to name but a few. Percussionist Marco Giovino, meanwhile, is equally at home playing country and rock, and performed or recorded with artists as disparate as Norah Jones, Southside Johnny and John Cale before settling into the drum seat in Patty Griffin's band.

"The amount of clatter and clang Marco brought along to the session showed he was thinking about the songs," says Plant in admiration. "Even down to the kind of church tambourine you can hear all over the record – it moves all over the body, so it swings.

"It doesn't matter if things go a bit sideways, so long as we can just pull it back within the next minute and a half," adds Plant. "One of the things I learnt from North African music is that rather than being precise, it's about sustaining a poignancy, a tension within the music, it's trying to get that shimmer in there, so it's not a finite, abrupt thing. And the great thing about the guys playing on the album is that it's almost like some unspoken code that the sound hangs on, it wavers."

The new album was recorded at Gillian Welch and David Rawlings' Woodland studio in Nashville, an important hub from the Seventies which the duo rescued from oblivion.

Despite Plant's name being above the title, it's clearly a collective endeavour by him and the musicians, built on mutual sensitivity.

"I found it incredibly refreshing, the lightness of it all was wonderful," he recalls. "And I didn't want to lose the essence of that. After all the things I've done, the idea of just stepping forward with other people and letting them take the lead, is an exciting prospect. And with Buddy, Patty and Darrell on this record, it promises to be exciting. One of the intentions with this production is to make sure it sounds like a Big Sing, with four voices all just letting it go."

The results of their efforts are varied, wide-ranging, yet undeniably of a piece, like the refracted colours in a drop of water. Opening with the throbbing pow-wow of Los Lobos's 'Angel Dance', the album encompasses the glittering drone-rock of Low's 'Silver Rider' and 'Monkey', the Fifties-style country-gospel harmonies which transform The Kelly Brothers' Sixties soul classic 'Falling In Love Again', the desolate banjo-driven interpretation of 'Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down', the transplanted English/Appalachian folk ballad 'Cindy, I'll Marry You Some Day', and the jangling blues imagery of 'Central Two-0-Nine', built around a studio jam. It all makes for Robert Plant's most eclectic work so far, an album which encompasses continents of influence and oceans of emotional depth, continuing the explorations of Raising Sand into bold new territory.

"Nothing is daunting for me – but forever challenging. I have to be able to just get out there into the great drift of music and possibility, and hang onto great themes and ideas."

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robertplant.com/news/robert-plant-band-of-joy-september-13th/

[glicine]

Thanks Sam for posting this!

Can't wait for the new album to come out.

[brspled]

:thumbsup:

[Deborah J]

What glicine and brspled stated.

[Virginia]

Yay!

[ledded1]

I just wish they would announce the other dates

[ninelives]

Very much looking forward to this :D

[Quix]

Hopefully they come up to the Michigan area! I would love to see Plant live.

[ally]

I'm chompin' at the bit. This will spruce up summer

[Avacado]

So excited for all of you that already have your tix. Hope to see those first concerts on YouTube. From all that Robert said, it sounds like he FINALLY found exactly what he'd been looking for. Maybe he'll write some new music down the line. Come on with more tour dates for the rest of us up north!!!!!!!!!

[reids]

Thanks for the update, Sam.

R