Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Return for a Second Duo Album, 14 Years After Their Grammy-Sweeping Debut

[sam_webmaster]

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Return for a Second Duo Album, 14 Years After Their Grammy-Sweeping Debut

 

 

 

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss at no point appeared to be in a hurry to record a follow-up to their first album together, 2007’s “Raising Sand,” which was a surprise sales hit and swept all six Grammys it was up for in 2009, including the top two prizes, record and album of the year. But some good things do come to those who wait, and the unlikely pair are making a by-now unlikely comeback 14 years later with a second duo album, “Raise the Roof,” due Nov. 19 on Rounder.

The template that made the first album such an unexpected monster has been put back in place, with T Bone Burnett producing and assembling some of his all-star studio players, and a track list made up almost entirely of cover versions of less familiar tunes by some well-known names.

The first single, out today, is “Can’t Let Go” by Randy Weeks, heretofore known as one of the highlights of Lucinda Williams’ classic 1998 “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” album. Other tracks dip into the catalogs of Calexico (whose “Quattro (World Drifts In)” leads off the collection), Merle Haggard, the Everly Brothers, Allen Toussaint, Bert Jansch and others. One track, “High and Lonesome,” is an original co-written by the former Led Zeppelin singer with producer Burnett.

A tour is planned for 2022, with dates to be announced later.

“We wanted it to move,” Krauss said in a statement announcing the record. “We brought other people in, other personalities within the band, and coming back together again in the studio brought a new intimacy to the harmonies.”

“You hear something and you go ‘Man, listen to that song, we got to sing that song!’” added Plant. “It’s a vacation, really—the perfect place to go that you least expected to find.”

Among the musicians, familiar to anyone who knows Burnett’s inner circle and/or the lineup for the first album, includes guitarists Marc Ribot, David Hidalgo (of Los Lobos fame), Bill Frisell and Buddy Miller; bassists Dennis Crouch and Viktor Krauss; pedal steel guitarist Russ Pahl and drummer Jay Bellerose.

“Raising Sand” debuted at No. 2 in the U.S. and went platinum on the way to its sixfold Grammy sweep. After successfully touring behind the album, Plant and Krauss dove into what was expected to be a fairly fast follow-up at the time, but never finished the project.

The track list for “Raise the Roof”:

1. Quattro (World Drifts In)
2. The Price of Love
3. Go Your Way
4. Trouble With My Lover
5. Searching for My Love
6. Can’t Let Go
7. It Don’t Bother Me
8. You Led Me to the Wrong
9. Last Kind Words Blues
10. High and Lonesome
11. Going Where the Lonely Go
12. Somebody Was Watching Over Me

https://variety.com/2021/music/news/robert-plant-alison-krauss-album-t-bone-burnett-reunite-1235040000/amp/

[76229]

With this and Saving Grace, I guess the Space Shifters are going to be kicking their heels for a while.

[reids]

😎🎸👍🎶

R😎

[Strider]

This is great news. But my jaw dropped at reading it has been 14 years since "Raising Sand". 14 YEARS!?! Led Zeppelin's entire career run was only 12 years. Time is really playing tricks with my mind.

[tenyearsgone21]

11 hours ago, 76229 said:

With this and Saving Grace, I guess the Space Shifters are going to be kicking their heels for a while.

I thought I read somewhere they parted ways (friendly).

 

[BobDobbs]

I really like the first single, kinda reminds me of Chris Isaac, the arrangement, not the vocals. Sounds like it could have been on San Francisco Days.

[SuperDave]

Awesome song and very upbeat for sure. I will listen to this often. It reminds me a bit of "Gone, Gone Gone" from "Raising Sand." Much better than some of the material Robert has released over the years. Having Alison to collaborate on this venture, just makes it better. She's just amazing. I actually saw her at Outlaw Music Festival in Phiily in 2019. What a fiddle player and voice she has! It should be a great album if the first single is anything to go by and I'm sure it is! Can't wait for their tour in 2022! What a match. Sorry it took 14 years for a reunion but it's here now! I'm stoked!

Here's the first single and "Can't Let Go."  Enjoy it and play it often!!!!

 

Edited August 13, 2021 by SuperDave

[SuperDave]

3 hours ago, Strider said:

This is great news. But my jaw dropped at reading it has been 14 years since "Raising Sand". 14 YEARS!?! Led Zeppelin's entire career run was only 12 years. Time is really playing tricks with my mind.

That's a great perspective Strider and can't be overlooked.  Just look at how much LZ's sound changed and everything from forming in summer 1968 to summer 1971 with the USA tour. Quite drastic for sure. Led Zeppelin were chameleons!

[The Only Way To Fly]

I'm really glad they did this! Looking forward to hearing the rest! Just ordered mine - Coke Bottle Green Vinyl - Limited to 1500 copies.

https://robertplant.probitymerch.com/browse/plant-krauss-us/products/raise-the-roof-coke-bottle-green-vinyl-2lp

Edited August 13, 2021 by The Only Way To Fly

[JTM]

Latest MOJO 355 Oct 21

 

Edited August 14, 2021 by JTM

[luvlz2]

THE SONGS ROBERT PLANT AND ALISON KRAUSS COVER ON 'RAISE THE ROOF'

Allison Rapp 8/13/21

At first glance, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss don't seem like a likely pairing.

Plant's history with one particularly famous British rock band in the '70s and Krauss' humble upraising during the bluegrass revival of the '90s would appear to be at odds with one another. But when the duo joined forces in 2007 for a T Bone Burnett-produced album of covers, Raising Sand, suddenly it was clear: Plant and Krauss' voices, even with one 20 years older than the other, melded beautifully.

The LP was a monumental success, winning all five Grammys it was nominated for, including Album of the Year. "Sometimes I want to pinch myself and say, 'Am I really in the middle of this?' " Plant said at the time. "There is such a great cacophony of sounds and style. I couldn't wish for anything better than this."

Fourteen years later, they aim to do it all again: Raise the Roof, once again produced by T Bone Burnett, will be released on Nov. 19. And once again they've selected a range of covers from early folk songs to newer rock tracks, lending their gorgeous harmonies to each. We take a look at the Songs Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Cover on Raise the Roof below.

1. "Quattro (World Drifts In)"

Artist: Calexico

Album: Feast of Wire (2003)

When Krauss first heard "Quattro (World Drifts In)," it was "the moment I knew we'd make another album." Taken from the 2003 album Feast of Wire by American indie-rock band Calexico, the song seemed a perfect match - even Joey Burns' vocals sound similar to Plant's tone and style.

2. "The Price of Love"

Artist: The Everly Brothers

Album: In Our Image (1966)

This isn't the first time "The Price of Love," a lively tune by the Everly Brothers, has been sung by other rock artists. It was covered by Roxy Music's Bryan Ferry for his 1976 solo album Let's Stick Together, by Poco for 1982's Cowboys & Englishmen and by Marianne Faithfull for her 2014 LP Give My Love to London. Buddy Miller, one of the musicians who contributed to Raise the Roof, also included a version on his 2002 album, Midnight and Lonesome. Another Everly Brothers song, "Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)," appeared on Raising Sand.

3. "Go Your Way"

Artist: Anne Briggs

Album: Anne Briggs (1971)

Most of the songs on English folk singer Anne Briggs' sophomore album were traditional tunes - "Go Your Way" was one of two exceptions. Even though she never found much commercial success in the folk scene, Briggs' influence stretched further than she ever anticipated. She and Bert Jansch, whose music is also covered on Raise the Roof, were close contemporaries, and it was through her that Jansch was introduced to the traditional song "Blackwaterside," which appears on Anne Briggs. Later, Plant's Led Zeppelin bandmate JImmy Page took inspiration from the song and wrote "Black Mountain Side," which appeared on the band's 1969 debut album.

4. "Trouble With My Lover"

Artist: Written by Allen Toussaint, recorded by Betty Harris

Artist: Soul Perfection (1969)

Singer Betty Harris had been in the music industry only a few years when she switched record labels to the New Orleans-based Sansu and began working with Allen Toussaint, whose soul arrangements served as the perfect backdrop to Harris' powerful voice. "Trouble With My Lover" appeared on 1969's Soul Perfection, a compilation album released only in the U.K. Plant and Krauss also included a Toussaint song on Raising Sand: "Fortune Teller."

5. "Searching for My Love"

Artist: Bobby Moore and the Rhythm Aces

Album: Searching for My Love (1966)

Written by saxophonist and Rhythm Aces bandleader Robert "Bobby" Moore, "Searching for My Love" reached No. 27 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1966. When the single was released, many who had never seen the group perform live assumed it was Moore singing based on the band's name. But that's guitarist Chico Jenkins handling the lead vocals here.

6. "Can't Let Go"

Artist: Written by Randy Weeks, recorded by Lucinda Williams

Album: Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (1998)

Originally written by Randy Weeks, "Can't Let Go" appeared on Lucinda Williams' 1998 album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. The song would earn her a Grammy nomination for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. "I was playing [album producer] Steve Earle's dobro," Williams once said of making the track, "which had a really wide neck, and my fingers kinda slipped on it. But the track was so brilliant that everyone went, 'No, no, it's great!"

7. "It Don't Bother Me"

Artist: Bert Jansch

Album: It Don't Bother Me (1965)

A leading figure in the British '60s folk movement, singer-songwriter Bert Jansch has influenced the likes of Paul Simon, Johnny Marr, Elton John, Donovan, Neil Young and Plant. The singer has even performed at Jansch tribute shows in 2013 and 2016, noting that he owes "enormous and long-standing" musical debt to the folk legend.

8. "You Led Me to the Wrong"

Artist: Ola Belle Reed

Album: Ola Belle Reed & Family (1977)

Ola Belle Reed, the fourth of 13 children to be born into a large family in rural North Carolina in 1916, was a pioneer in bluegrass music. She learned to play the banjo clawhammer style as a teenager and sang songs with her family about Appalachian life and traditions passed down through generations. She performed with multiple folk ensembles in the '30s and '40s, while her songs have been recorded by many mainstream bluegrass and country artists including Tim O'Brien and Marty Stuart.

9. "Last Kind Words Blues"

Artist: Geeshie Wiley

The exact details of Geeshie Wiley's background are unclear - even her official name has been subject to multiple conjectures. Wiley recorded only six songs across three singles in April 1930, singing and accompanying herself on guitar. Her wistful, emotional performances are considered some of the best examples of early southern blues music, all the more noteworthy because she was a female guitarist.

10. "High and Lonesome"

Artist: Robert Plant / T Bone Burnett

Album: Raising the Roof (2021)

Details have yet to emerge on the inspiration and story behind the only non-cover on Raise the Roof, which is penned by Plant and Burnett. But by now the pair is at ease bouncing ideas back and forth. "I always set up the studio as if it is a living room, Burnett once said. "Having a comfortable environment, instead of a sterile environment, where it's all about recording. It's more like, 'Okay, we're here now. Let's be comfortable.'" Raising Sand included another Plant cowrite: "Please Read the Letter," a song originally recorded by Plant and Page for their 1998 album, Walking Into Clarksdale.

11. "Going Where the Lonely Go"

Artist: Merle Haggard, cowritten with Dean Holloway

Album: Going Where the Lonely Go (1982)

"Going Where the Lonely Go, " the lead single and title track from Merle Haggard's 35th album, became another hit country song for the late legend when it was released in 1982. Cowritten with Dean Holloway, the song features Haggard's longtime backing band the Strangers. Krauss once guested on another Haggard album, 2007's The Bluegrass Sessions, duetting on "Mama's Hungry Eyes."

12. "Somebody Was Watching Over Me"

Artist: Written by Brenda Burns, recorded by Maria Muldaur

Album: Fanning the Flames (1996)

A member of the vibrant Greenwich Village folk scene in the '60s, singer Maria Muldaur's style strayed from the genre (she had a Top 10 hit in 1973 with "Midnight at the Oasis"). Fanning the Flames, on which "Somebody Was Watching Over Me" appears, also included guests from a range of backgrounds, including Huey Lewis, Mavis Staples and Bonnie Raitt.

 

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/robert-plant-alison-krauss-raise-the-roof-songs/

Edited August 26, 2021 by luvlz2

[luvlz2]

ROBERT PLANT AND ALISON KRAUSS CONNECT OVER WHAT THEY DON'T KNOW

Martin Kielty - September 5, 2021

Robert Plant says he and Alison Krauss work so well together because of what they don't know. The duo, who released multi-award winning album Raising Sand in 2007, recently confirmed the launch of a follow-up, Raise the Roof, which arrives on Nov. 19. Like its predecessor, the new LP contains a selection of cover versions of tracks from a number of decades and genres, including folk and rock.

"When I spent that first year or so with Alison, I was so amazed by America.," Plant told Mojo in a recent interview. "I thought I'd got America down, but here was this whole world of country music I'd not encountered. That's the great thing about me and Alison -- we're ably supported by a world of beautiful music that one of other of us doesn't know too much about."

He described himself and Krauss as "a couple of kindred spirits," adding: "Most musicians form a band, then they stay in the band until it's over - 20 years, 30 years, 50 years, whatever it is, and it starts to look sadly decrepit. It's like people hanging onto a life raft, or staying in a comfortable place. With us two, there's nothing written in blood. We were ready to do something new, and we knew how good it was before, so we can just join up again and see where we go. We've got nothing to lose."

In the same interview, Krauss offered another reason for the successful pairing. "Robert's singing is the epitome of freedom and spontaneity," she said, "and I'm pretty regimented, but there's a romance in contrast."

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/robert-plant-alison-krauss-connection/

[Cookie0024]

The second single from the album, "High and Lonesome," was premiered on BBC Radio 6 Music this morning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM40mlXWOSM

Robert Plant’s introduction to the song is available here from 39:05: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00108w3

Robert Plant will be interviewed on Jo Whiley's BBC Radio 2 show tonight at 7.30pm UK time: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00108gk

Edited October 7, 2021 by Cookie0024

[zeplz71]

Weird that the Youtube link on Robert's channel is removed.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM40mlXWOSM

Nevermind working again now!

Edited October 7, 2021 by zeplz71

[reids]

Target has the Plant/Krauss cd deluxe version Pre-order (with 2 bonus tracks) listed on the Target website as of this morning.

R😎

[luvlz2]

On 10/15/2021 at 3:35 AM, reids said:

Target has the Plant/Krauss cd deluxe version Pre-order (with 2 bonus tracks) listed on the Target website as of this morning.

R😎

Ordered the vinyl from Target, it has the 2 bonus tracks as well. Thanks for the heads up reids!

[reids]

On 10/28/2021 at 11:05 PM, luvlz2 said:

Ordered the vinyl from Target, it has the 2 bonus tracks as well. Thanks for the heads up reids!

You’re welcome 😊 

R😎

[zeplz71]

Love the original by Bert Jansch. Not a lot of RP on this cover.

 

 

[sam_webmaster]

After 14 Years, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Finally Reunite

The duo worked with T Bone Burnett on the million-selling triumph “Raising Sand,” in 2007. Its sequel is once again an alternative to nearly all of its pop contemporaries.

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss's unlikely partnership yielded a huge hit in the 2007 album “Raising Sand.” After a 14-year pause, they’re back with a new LP of reimagined music.
 

photo: Eric Ryan Anderson for The New York Times

by Jon Pareles   |  Nov. 4, 2021

“Raising Sand,” the 2007 duet album by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, started as an experiment, a modest side project for two longtime bandleaders to revisit old and recent songs. It was a hushed, long-breathed album with a haunted twang, yet it turned into a blockbuster — selling more than a million copies and winning five Grammy Awards including album of the year.

A follow-up would have seemed like an obvious next step. Yet it has taken 14 years for the arrival of that sequel: “Raise the Roof,” due Nov. 19.

“Raise the Roof” almost magically reclaims the spectral tone of “Raising Sand,” then finds ways to expand on it, delving further into both quiet subtleties and wailing intensity. “It’s a little bit more smoky, a little bit more lustrous than the first record,” Plant, 73, said by phone from his home in western England.

“It’s definitely different, even though it might be coming out of the same sort of crevasse, the same fork in the landscape of our musical lives. It has a mood to it, which is laced with time and with the actual age and maturity of the songs themselves.”

But the musicians needed a decade of reflection between albums. “If we had thought we knew what we were doing in the first place, we could probably have repeated it,” T Bone Burnett, 73, the producer and linchpin of both albums, said by telephone from Nashville. “But we didn’t. At the time, we were just kind of goofing off, having fun. And that’s what we were up against. We’ve been waiting for it to get to that point where we could just have fun doing it again.”

Plant and Krauss were an unlikely pairing from the start. “We were from two radically different worlds,” Plant said. He was the world-conquering, musically restless rock singer who had fronted Led Zeppelin. Krauss was already a luminary in the more close-knit world of bluegrass and Americana, leading the string band Union Station.

They were also strikingly disparate singers, with contrasting musical instincts. Krauss, 50, grew up harmonizing in bluegrass groups, figuring out and delivering restrained, precise, locked-in ensemble parts. “I’m a regimented-type singer,” she said. “Bluegrass people sing things very consistently, because there’s three parts going on most times. And if someone pulls around and goes and does something different, now the other two want to run you over with their car.”

Plant was used to a lead singer’s free rein; he would improvise with every take. “I try to sing across the beat quite a bit,” he said. “If it’s a straightforward groove, I like to bounce across the left and right of the groove. I did it in Zeppelin. I kind of scuttle it, accelerate it, slow it down.” He chuckled. “It drives them mad.”
Editors’  
 

Krauss grew to appreciate their differences. “It makes you feel like you’re hanging off the edge of a cliff,” she said by telephone from her home in Nashville. “It is so exciting and so magnificent.” Plant and Krauss first sang together as part of a 2004 tribute to Lead Belly, and Plant proposed that they try recording together when their schedules aligned; that took more than a year. Plant initially suggested trying just three days in the studio to see if anything worked out.
  

They enlisted Burnett, who had recently reimagined old-timey Appalachian music for the soundtrack to “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” which featured Union Station. For “Raising Sand,” the three gathered songs — mostly about tragic lost loves — and transfigured them with close harmonies and an aura of suspended time. Burnett’s studio band let tempos hover and undulate; Plant and Krauss discovered how uncannily their voices could fit together.
 

“A funny thing happens with them,” Burnett said. “When the two of them sing, it creates a third voice, a third part in their harmonies when there are only two parts. You know, one plus one equals two unless you’re counting, say, drops of rain. Then one plus one could equal one, or one plus one could equal a fine mist. Their voices are in that relative space where they sing together and it creates a fine mist.”

“Raising Sand” was an otherworldly alternative to virtually all of its pop contemporaries (its competition at the Grammys included Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter III” and Ne-Yo’s “Year of the Gentleman”), and although it was released on the folky independent label Rounder, eager listeners sought it out. It reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 album chart.

Plant already had another project underway in 2007: the arena-sized last hurrah of Led Zeppelin that December. But the Led Zeppelin performance was an endpoint, while “Raising Sand” was a new beginning. Plant and Krauss toured for much of the next year, with concert sets that included some revamped Led Zeppelin songs. They plan to tour again in 2022.

“We’ve got a kind of a personality which we could pursue as two singers, a neat place that we made for ourselves,” Plant said. “I just liked the idea of actually singing together throughout an entire show, more or less with somebody. Concentrating, listening, being free-form at times. Letting it rip, then being pretty controlled and organized and following instructions from her. And then, sometimes, letting go so she can’t catch me.”

Yet having a hit album also brought self-consciousness and pressure. Plant and Krauss tried recording new duets with their touring band just after their Grammy sweep in 2009, but scrapped those sessions. “Nothing happened that was really horrible,” Krauss said. “We just felt like it was too much at once.”

They then returned to their own bands and projects: Krauss with Union Station; Plant leading his Americana-rooted Band of Joy and then, for much of the 2010s, the psychedelia-, trip-hop- and world-music-infused Sensational Space Shifters. “We really enjoyed the fact that we have no idea about our corresponding alternative lives,” Plant said.

Still, the “Raising Sand” collaborators stayed in touch. “We’ve been sending songs back and forth for almost 14 years, trying to figure out how to continue,” Burnett said.

Finally, in 2019, they regrouped. A decade of other work had made the sequel less fraught although “there was a little bit of trepidation on my part,” Plant said. “I wasn’t sure whether we could reinvoke what we had. But it was very short-lived, that question of whether or not it was real. It was like, I bow to her, and she curtsies to me, and we see what we can do.”

They went back to the venerable Nashville studio, Sound Emporium, where they had recorded “Raising Sand,” and where Burnett and Krauss have frequently recorded since. (Plant returned there this year, he said, for sessions with the 1950s guitar titans Duane Eddy and James Burton.)
  

The core rhythm section from “Raising Sand,” Jay Bellerose on drums and Dennis Crouch on bass, had continued to work with Burnett and returned for the new album. They were joined by an expanded assortment of guitarists including Marc Ribot; Bill Frisell; David Hidalgo from Los Lobos; and Buddy Miller, a Nashville stalwart who was in Plant’s Band of Joy. A few songs added collectors’ item string instruments like a Marxophone and a dolceola, both zithers played with keyboards: tinkling, evocative, echoey, unexpected timbres. Plant and Krauss finished recording in February 2020, just before the pandemic lockdowns.

“Raise the Roof” opens with a song from the Arizona band Calexico, “Quattro (World Drifts In),” which is filled with images of desolation, escape and war, perhaps conjuring Afghanistan: “No choice but to run to the mountains where no poppies grow/You have to hit the ground running.”

While most of the other songs on “Raise the Roof” ponder love, separation and longing, the album has a discreet through line. “As we were going through the material,” Burnett said, “it was clear that a story was being told concerning a man, a woman and war. And it became clear which songs fit and the sequence they went in.”

The collaborators returned to some of the songwriters from “Raising Sand,” picking up the Everly Brothers’ “The Price of Love” and the Allen Toussaint song “Trouble With My Lover,” which was recorded by Betty Harris. And as on “Raising Sand,” they remade tracks that started as blues, old-timey, soul, country, gospel and rock.

Their versions are far removed from the originals, often close to inside-out. Most often, Plant said, “We have a kind of languid, sometimes pensive sound, with the pathos of the original song taken into another place.”

They stripped songs down to just lyrics and melodies, and rebuilt them intuitively in the studio, often around sparse, subtle beats from Bellerose. They shifted “Trouble With My Lover” from a major to a minor key, and Krauss trades Harris’s New Orleans soul resilience for a neo-Appalachian plaint, lingering over the song’s loneliness and hints of betrayal.

Krauss chose “Going Where the Lonely Go,” a doleful ballad that Merle Haggard released in the 1980s. Plant seized the chance to record a soul song he had been singing since his teens: “Searching for My Love,” by Bobby Moore & the Rhythm Aces. He also brought material from Britain’s 1960s folk revival: Bert Jansch’s stoically intransigent “It Don’t Bother Me,” which brings out Krauss’s defiant streak; and Anne Briggs’s “Go Your Way,” a wife’s troubled farewell song to a soldier she may never see again.

At one of the album’s extremes, Plant unleashes his Led Zeppelin wail and echoes of “Kashmir” in “High and Lonesome,” a song that grew out of a studio jam session. Burnett and the rhythm section were toying with a Bo Diddley beat. Plant happened to have his book of potential lyrics with him. The title is a tongue-in-cheek country cliché; the song is not. It is equally biblical and bluesy, wondering, “If I should lose my soul, would you still care for me?”

At the other end of the dynamic scale is “The Price of Love.” The Everly Brothers’ own version is an exuberant two-minute, harmonica-topped stomp, though they’re singing about a cheater’s bitter regrets. Plant, Krauss and Burnett took the song down to half-speed and removed any distractions. The track opens with half a minute of near-ambience as instruments quietly drop in: a bowed bass drone, shakers, a distant fiddle, eventually a few guitar notes before the beat and chords solidify and Krauss arrives like an accusatory wraith: “You won’t forget her,” she warns. By taking their time, they concentrate the essence of the song. And as they did with “Raising Sand,” they calmly defy the impatience of 21st-century pop.

The song “kind of forms before your ears,” Plant said. “When people stick stuff on the radio now, I think you’re allowed like 16 seconds or even less before you’re actually hitting a chorus. But then again, we’re fishing in a different pool. In fact, we’re not even fishing. We’re just trying to swim.”

Jon Pareles has been The Times’s chief pop music critic since 1988. A musician, he has played in rock bands, jazz groups and classical ensembles. He majored in music at Yale University. @JonPareles

[sam_webmaster]

Join RP and Alison Krauss at 6PM GMT / 7PM CET / 10AM PST / 12pm CT / 1PM ET on November 19th on YouTube for a livestream from Nashville's Sound Emporium Studios.

Tune in to watch the duo and the all-star band debut a selection of songs from the new 'Raise The Roof' album.

Set a reminder and subscribe now: https://plantkrauss.lnk.to/YTLivestream

 

 

[sam_webmaster]

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss on Why They Never Dated: 'We'd Be in Trouble Now'

Raise the Roof, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' follow-up to the 2007 hit Raising Sand, is out on Nov. 19

By Rachel DeSantis November 18, 2021 
 

 

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' chemistry is off the charts — at least, when it comes to their music.

The pair caught lightning in a bottle when they joined forces on the Grammy-winning 2007 album Raising Sand, and are looking to do so again with Raise the Roof, a new collaboration out Nov. 19.

And although the Led Zeppelin rocker, 73, and the bluegrass darling, 50, share a close friendship, that bond — and considerable critical success — doesn't exactly translate into their personal lives.

The pair were quizzed in this week's issue of PEOPLE on whether they were aware of internet chatter that perhaps their friendship was something romantic — chatter they quickly shut down.

"I haven't heard it in a long time, but we did. We still do," Krauss says of having a relationship with Plant.

"But not that one," Plant interjects, before Krauss chimes in to clarify: "We have a musical one."
 

Ever ready with a wisecrack, Plant quips: "Because if we had that one, we'd be in trouble now. Trouble, party of one."

With the coast clear of trouble, the two are ready to make a new mark with Raise the Roof, which features 12 new tracks, all covers just like last time, save for "High and Lonesome," an original that Plant wrote with producer T Bone Burnett.

For more on Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribe here.

A return to the studio 14 years later was easy for Plant, who says he and Krauss are "good together."

"We're just good," he says. "I think we are determined and gritty. We like the idea of seeing things straight down the line, no fluffy stuff. So if we don't get it right, we have to move on. And we're friends, really good friends, so we can reach a 'no' really quickly if it's not feeling right.

Krauss, meanwhile, says she and the British rocker share a "real love for history and where we both come from."

Though they bonded over such similarities, there was a learning curve, at least in the beginning, as Krauss essentially tutored Plant during their first go-round, especially when it came to harmonies.

"We've got our own individual strengths, and it's a miracle that they can ever meld. But they do," he says. "In the beginning it was difficult, because I wasn't used to being tutored and, 'Why don't you do it like this?' And I just thought, 'Oh, baby!'"

RELATED: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Had 'No Expectations' Making New Album: 'Knew It Would Be Good'

Still, he says, "I like it. I like the idea of learning new stuff… I felt so much more accomplished when it started to work good."

Looking ahead, Krauss and Plant hope to one day take the record on tour, once COVID-related logistics ease — and aren't closing the door on a third album.

"I don't see any reason why not. There's a world full of beautiful songs that are waiting to be brought back into focus in a different way," says Plant. "I can't see any reason that that shouldn't work."

https://people.com/music/robert-plant-alison-krauss-on-why-they-never-dated/

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