Plant-Krauss Article and Plant Comments

[011269LZI]

http://music.guardian.co.uk/rock/reviews/s...2280182,00.html

One interesting thing, at least for me cause I did not know, Krauss turned down tickets to see Zeppelin at the O2.

A little bit country, a little bit rock'n'roll

Robert Plant would rather spend his 60th birthday singing bluegrass than touring with Led Zeppelin. He tells Sylvie Simmons why leaving his comfort zone took balls

Friday May 16, 2008

The Guardian

Robert Plant is smiling. A big, happy grin, the same one he had earlier, through almost the entirety of his show with Alison Krauss, the 36-year-old American bluegrass singer and fiddle player. "Sorry about that," he says, "but it's just so much fun. It's just the revelations, I think, that's what the smiles are about - like, 'We can do it.' I mean, could you ever imagine, with my supposed background?"

Article continues

The appearance of the beautiful, understated Plant-Krauss collaborative album Raising Sand coincided with a rare reunion of the band in which Plant made his name, Led Zeppelin. Their charity performance at London's 02 Arena last year, with Jason Bonham sitting in on drums for his late father John, attracted a reported 20m applications for the 18,000 tickets, won accolades from music critics and led to rumours of a full tour - stymied, according to the Sunday Mirror, by Plant turning down a £100m offer to reunite for a full Zeppelin tour in favour of this low-key jaunt with Krauss.

Tonight's show, in the lovely little Tennessee city of Chattanooga, is in an old, cream-coloured brick building, looking like a cross between a town hall and a theatre. There is just one ticket tout outside. Like the rest of the audience, he exudes southern courtesy. Plant says the south seemed the perfect place to perform his reading of the music of rural America before a paying public.

"I was just saying last night, halfway through a bottle of Grey Goose, 'I don't know if this is a kind of urban north-east adventure, or whether it really does belong in the Chattanoogas and Roanokes.'" The morning after their show in Louisville, Kentucky, he "drove across the state line into Tennessee in the Clinch Mountains, where the Stanley Brothers were, and I came over the Cumberland Gap, which I thought was a Lonnie Donegal song. And just before Chattanooga I pulled over by the side of a lake and thought, 'Man, this is so, so beautiful.'"

Poking his head into a family restaurant, he saw "a 10-year-old, porky little kid with a hat on, playing fiddle like you wouldn't believe, with a 16-year-old, 6ft 4in kid with a banjo, and the two of them were just standing on this little raised dais, while people were eating catfish, and they were just wailing. Why did I only think that Howlin' Wolf wailed?"

Before his collaboration with Krauss - which grew, after a long gestation, from having met at a tribute to the blues singer Lead Belly - Plant admits he had serious prejudices about country, the music Hank Williams called "the white man's blues". Plant's musical epiphany, in his early teens, had come from black American music, when he saw Son House, Skip James and Bukka White play on package tours of the UK in the mid-60s. "I was really only interested in the black variety," he says. "As a young British male, that does change your life."

The romantic lyrics and mature singing style of the country songs he heard on British radio "didn't make as much sense for me and my friends, who were learning how to be as masculine as 'Squeeze my lemon till the juice runs down my leg.' Bear in mind I was 13. So for a long time I closed my eyes to the possibility of America having a white voice."

Collaborating with Krauss, who started performing country at the same age that Plant discovered the blues, "was like stepping into another world". But, he says, he has learned a lot: "I've been scared and I've liked not hanging on to stuff where I know that I'm in my comfort zone."

On stage in Chattanooga's Memorial Auditorium, though, it's Krauss who looks a little awkward, while Plant seems to be having the time of his life. Her singing, though, is astonishing - the missing link between Emmylou Harris and Mavis Staples. "You know what she said to me?" Plant asks. "'You've got to understand, I have never ever stood at a microphone without holding a violin.' So that's 20, 25 odd years of being on stage, and it's the first time she hasn't held a fiddle [during every song]. But she's getting more and more comfortable."

The set also includes new versions of three Zeppelin songs. Which must have been weird for Krauss, who declined Plant's invitation to see the Zeppelin reunion concert and gave her pair of tickets to her brother. The songs, though, fit in perfectly. When the Levee Breaks is stripped down to a folk-blues song with a fiddle refrain and a quote from the traditional Girl from the North Country. And, as Zeppelin fans will tell you, the original version of The Battle of Evermore also featured a woman singer, the late British folk artist Sandy Denny.

That was the first time Plant had sung with a woman, "but it was totally different than with Alison, nothing like as disciplined, an accidental drifting of harmonies. Alison is just a miracle. There was no real, 'Let's do it like this'; the two of us step up to the microphone and she's amazing, she can just follow my voice. She said, on When the Levee Breaks, 'If you want to go up, I'll come with you, just give me one split second.' And I really went for it and she was right above me, soaring like an eagle. It was amazing." He says he's still learning to sing harmony and practising constantly. "I'm listening to songs now all the time and creating harmonies, walking down the street like some sad, old Everly Brother. And it's not stopping here either, that's the good thing."

Meaning a second album with Krauss? The first was, after all, a resounding success, wining a Grammy and selling more than 1m copies. "We're right in the middle of the honeymoon right now and we're coming up with all sorts of great songs. When we go back on the road after Europe, back into the Carolinas and all those places, I think that we'll all be sitting in the back of the bus getting down and writing, maybe. It seems like the natural thing to do. The fluidity and the flexibility that's coming about now, it would be a shame not to do something original."

Dates on the second leg of the tour continue through August - the month Plant turns 60 years old. "It's a monumental number," he admits. "I remember seeing Big Joe Williams and Son House and all those guys at Birmingham Town Hall when I was about 14 or 15, and most of them were born after the turn of the 20th century, so really I am now of the age and the time that those men were when I looked at them like they were some sort of mysterious messengers from another time and planet. So I'm getting up there.

"I don't wish to start sounding like I'm gushing about this particular time of my life, but being with the right people is really crucial. I'm so aware of the fact that if I hadn't taken the chances that I've taken along the line, I probably wouldn't be getting the best out of my voice anymore, I might have messed it up in that awful, predictable place. So I've already got a birthday present."

That awful place is presumably an allusion to Zeppelin or its particular brand of loud, blues rock. When we last talked - in Nashville last October, where Plant and Krauss recorded Raising Sand - he was about to leave for London for the Zeppelin show. The press reported that his bandmates were furious he preferred to promote his record with Krauss than rehearse with them. But Plant brushes it off as media spin.

I remind him of one of the questions Krauss asked him during that last interview: whether it felt good to be on stage with his old band. Well, did it?

"You'd need a month for me to tell you. I don't really know what happened. I think it was a very humbling experience. Because I'm comfortable singing Fortune Teller and Your Long Journey" - two Raising Sand songs - "I can relate to them, they're not my songs but I can really bring them to some new place. But when I'm singing my own songs with that [Zeppelin] persona and that responsibility, then that's pretty heavyweight, and there were so many forces at work."

What kind of forces?

"It was so crucial that we didn't end up sending ourselves up by trying to be whatever it was that people thought we were. Because I don't really know what anybody thought we were."

Plant tells me he was "in tears" at the end of the concert. "Because it really did work, whatever 'it' was, for what it was. A great feat of engineering - social engineering mostly. The trouble is now, with rock'n'roll and stuff, it gets so big that it loses what once upon a time was a magnificent thing, where it was special and quite elusive and occasionally a little sinister and it had its own world nobody could get in." He feels too many big artists are fixated on the "next biggest thing" and are too willing to "sell their souls". "I'm afraid all that stuff really leaves me cold," he says.

So he did turn down a Zeppelin tour?

"There's really no point talking about it," he says. "I don't hold the keys to any decision by anybody to do anything. And everything has to be for the right reason. The reason that I have been flavour of the month or out in the cold myself as a performer is because I choose to excite myself and do these things and give it a good go, take it some place. And that's what Led Zeppelin did before. We were always pushing it and manipulating musical history and you know how serious I was about Zeppelin - it had to be absolutely right.

"So, that's the way forward. I do things because I want to be excited and I want to be risky. More important to me than anything else really," he smiles, "is to find out whether or not I've got the balls."

· Robert Plant and Alison Krauss play Wembley Arena on Thursday May 22

[SuperDave]

Thanks for the article, I read this earlier. Robert is not that enthusiastic about a Zep tour. He's very worried about it living up to its' potential. I guess you can't blame him. We'll see.

[mos6507]

That's not very encouraging for the fall. I have to say this is the most depressing interview he's given yet. The window of opportunity is closing fast.

[eternal light]

Robert Plant is smiling. A big, happy grin, the same one he had earlier, through almost the entirety of his show with Alison Krauss, the 36-year-old American bluegrass singer and fiddle player. "Sorry about that," he says, "but it's just so much fun. It's just the revelations, I think, that's what the smiles are about - like, 'We can do it.' I mean, could you ever imagine, with my supposed background?"

It doesn't really surprise me.

[reids]

... surprising and risky would be for him to record a new album with Jason and tour with the 3 J's (performing rare and new material). He's done everything else except Bard's music (like Sting did a few years ago), Opera (a new tenor???) and Rap (which he kind of did on "The Truth Explodes" w/ Page in the mid 90s.

Page performed with Diddy, so there's the rap.

R

[SteveAJones]

"When we go back on the road after Europe, back into the Carolinas and all those places, I think that we'll all be sitting in the back of the bus getting down and writing, maybe. It seems like the natural thing to do. The fluidity and the flexibility that's coming about now, it would be a shame not to do something original." -- Robert Plant

In other words, your on your own Jimmy.

[eternal light]

There's nothing keeping Jimmy Page from the Carolinas.

[zooma]

"When we go back on the road after Europe, back into the Carolinas and all those places, I think that we'll all be sitting in the back of the bus getting down and writing, maybe. It seems like the natural thing to do. The fluidity and the flexibility that's coming about now, it would be a shame not to do something original." -- Robert Plant

In other words, your on your own Jimmy.

Jimmy has been on his own since 1980. If he still has something to say musically, the time is now.

[Roxie]

"More important to me than anything else really," he smiles, "is to find out whether or not I've got the balls."

Does he need to question that?

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Continue...

[eternal light]

Does he need to question that?

No, I can check that for him if he's not sure.

[Zepaholic]

The reason that I have been flavour of the month or out in the cold myself as a performer is because I choose to excite myself and do these things and give it a good go, take it some place. And that's what Led Zeppelin did before. We were always pushing it and manipulating musical history and you know how serious I was about Zeppelin - it had to be absolutely right.

I see this quote differently. Robert is doing something new, it exites him, he's testing his musical boundries. IF Zep were to perhaps get some new tunes together, delete the old classics from the setlist, strip down some "album cuts" and rework the arrangements...i think that he would welcome that. The collosal stadium gigs with WLL, Black Dog, STH and even SIBLY does not appeal to him. Hell, if Jimmy and JP could "bluegrass" some of their acoustic tunes, he'd probably fall right in.

Again, RP has NOT closed the door to LZ...ever, in any known quote. He wants a change to the way things are traditionally done in the Zep camp and possibly a change in the musical direction as well.

I'm not delusional enough to believe that a tour is a lock. There needs to be a willingness to think differently, adapt, and constantly move forward with the way the music is presented. Promoters and many LZ fans would frown upon this, of course.

I'm keeping the faith...for now.

[eternal light]

Hell, if Jimmy and JP could "bluegrass" some of their acoustic tunes, he'd probably fall right in.

John Paul Jones has already played a bluegrass rendition of Gallows Pole with Mutual Admiration Society long before Robert Plant began his current tour with Alison Krauss.

[Peep Solero]

Oh gosh this IS the most depressing interview yet…I too feel like the opportunity is fastly disappearing for any Zeppelin related endeavor to come through.

On the other hand as a person I have to be happy for RP, if you just look at the pictures with him and Alison you can see he's smiling and so goddamn happy like he wasn't in a long time- this project really seems to bring him joy- which is wonderful.

I could practically see he's been smiling so much he's face hurts, and I've had that feeling a few times and it's so powerful and amazing and it comes so very rarely in a person's life.

But as a Zeppelin fan I want him to find the same happiness again with the 3 J's…Robert have a ball babe, you deserve it but come on home…we miss you!

[kdh]

Love is hard thing to find.

[Hotplant]

There's nothing keeping Jimmy Page from the Carolinas.

Ohhhh Robert, we KNOW you've got the balls.

And now we know why Alison sometimes looks so lost...she isn't holding her fiddle!

It would feel strange, so I'll cut her the slack now.

Robert will love the Carolinas.. ..wish I were there now.

[mos6507]

... surprising and risky would be for him to record a new album with Jason and tour with the 3 J's (performing rare and new material). He's done everything else except Bard's music (like Sting did a few years ago), Opera (a new tenor???) and Rap (which he kind of did on "The Truth Explodes" w/ Page in the mid 90s.

Page performed with Diddy, so there's the rap.

R

Tall Cool One has the rap section but I don't think Robert speaks those lines.

[mos6507]

The only silver lining is that if T-Bone is booked up this fall then Robert will have some free time to check out what the three Js are doing. He seems to enjoy being in the catbird seat and having people fight over his attention. I think he can still be won over, assuming the three Js want to fight for him.

I don't think he should postpone things too much, though. If he thinks he can milk this AK/RP partnership for another 2-3 years, the planets simply will never align again for Zeppelin.

[stik82]

The only silver lining is that if T-Bone is booked up this fall then Robert will have some free time to check out what the three Js are doing. He seems to enjoy being in the catbird seat and having people fight over his attention. I think he can still be won over, assuming the three Js want to fight for him.

I don't think he should postpone things too much, though. If he thinks he can milk this AK/RP partnership for another 2-3 years, the planets simply will never align again for Zeppelin.

[eternal light]

If he thinks he can milk this AK/RP partnership for another 2-3 years, the planets simply will never align again for Zeppelin.

Hopefully it's more than just a choice over what to milk.

[Robert's Plant]

Plant tells me he was "in tears" at the end of the concert. "Because it really did work, whatever 'it' was, for what it was. A great feat of engineering - social engineering mostly. The trouble is now, with rock'n'roll and stuff, it gets so big that it loses what once upon a time was a magnificent thing, where it was special and quite elusive and occasionally a little sinister and it had its own world nobody could get in." He feels too many big artists are fixated on the "next biggest thing" and are too willing to "sell their souls". "I'm afraid all that stuff really leaves me cold," he says.

I guess Robert Plant has summed it all up, why there will (might) never be a tour. I find myself admiring the man even more for his reasons of declining what is going to be the biggest money-making gig of this present century. It proves once and for all what had set Led Zeppelin apart and beyond their second fiddles in the 70's and now.

While he feels he is a flavour of the month now - Robert Plant you made the world a cool place for a lot of young people as a young rock god. Maybe half-forgotten for a quarter century as those young people had to grow up too you know, you are someone the world will always want to be around for a hundred years even if you won't make music. That voice, those gob-smacking good looks. No one is as authentic as you. 12 years of raw magic thank you Led Zeppelin but stop before anything exploits it. The mystic of Led Zeppelin will always be planted in my mind. I do not want a tour to demystify Led Zeppelin.

[Robert's Plant]

Also clearly he's not stopping Jimmy Page and JPJ from doing projects, using Led Zep songs as much as he does. It's just not all of them together singing the same tunes all over all the time.

It had be absolutely right.

The guy is open for discussion. A good one.

[beatbo]

you know, thoughout the first of this year, after the O2, we all knew that robert would have to face the question many times. and, i must admit, i have been suprised that he hasn't come out and just said "No."

why doesn't he? why doesn't robert just say "can't see it happening, december was the way to leave it, i've discovered a late night addition to myself and my motivation as an artist. led zeppelin will be no more than a corporate entity preserving the dream. i can't help it. sorry."

he can't. in my opinion, led zeppelin is the reason for the season. as much as i like his duo, and as much as i loved their show (as well as the other 15 times i have seen plant in various permutations), i listened because of led zeppelin. i went because of led zeppelin.

and so have all of you.

i believe robert will not be forced into anything by anybody,any manager, any cause or debt, not even by jimmy page or the son of his dead best friend.

however, led zeppelin is his driving permit to every road his artistry cares to careen on.

and he knows it.

i hope that he is thankful for it. it has allowed his flower to bloom. he has played it right so far, but he has played it, i assure you.

and he can't say no forever. it's part of the deal.

it is true and perhaps slightly possible that he could turn 60 and pack it in. what else is there left, all told?

but he also has a chance to go right up until he drops, much like muddy waters did, his mojo still intact, his passion still palpable, his dignity undented.

but he has to take zeppelin with him. there is no other way. zeppelin is what is taking HIM.

the price for robert has been high, yes. but true art-creating a body of work that shows growth, humanity, and empathy with his audience- is not cost-free.

i also believe that there are times even today when robert doesn't know how he will manage it.

look, i don't have any inside information or connections. i have a few thousand LP's (which stands for long-player record, i was told on another thread) a few hundred discs, some memorabilia, and some vivid emotional reactions from the music and perfomances of led zeppelin that have reminded me as a human how it feels to be human. that's my ticket, that gives me a say, makes me part of the ocean. whether or not that was robert's intention when he first began, i know from continuing to listen to him that he feels that, too.

let's hope for the best-for all of us (band included).

beat

[eternal light]

Plant tells me he was "in tears" at the end of the concert. "Because it really did work, whatever 'it' was, for what it was. A great feat of engineering - social engineering mostly. The trouble is now, with rock'n'roll and stuff, it gets so big that it loses what once upon a time was a magnificent thing, where it was special and quite elusive and occasionally a little sinister and it had its own world nobody could get in." He feels too many big artists are fixated on the "next biggest thing" and are too willing to "sell their souls". "I'm afraid all that stuff really leaves me cold," he says.

It's nice when you have an invasion-proof rock and roll sanctuary.

[stik82]

Thanks for the article, I read this earlier. Robert is not that enthusiastic about a Zep tour. He's very worried about it living up to its' potential. I guess you can't blame him. We'll see.

Robert likes talented string players. He had one with Jimmy Page, and I'm sure he was awed when he saw Ms Krauss play. She is talently haunting. Just like Jimmy. Any question's ?

[ninelives]

you know, thoughout the first of this year, after the O2, we all knew that robert would have to face the question many times. and, i must admit, i have been suprised that he hasn't come out and just said "No."

why doesn't he? why doesn't robert just say "can't see it happening, december was the way to leave it, i've discovered a late night addition to myself and my motivation as an artist. led zeppelin will be no more than a corporate entity preserving the dream. i can't help it. sorry."

he can't. in my opinion, led zeppelin is the reason for the season. as much as i like his duo, and as much as i loved their show (as well as the other 15 times i have seen plant in various permutations), i listened because of led zeppelin. i went because of led zeppelin.

and so have all of you.

i believe robert will not be forced into anything by anybody,any manager, any cause or debt, not even by jimmy page or the son of his dead best friend.

however, led zeppelin is his driving permit to every road his artistry cares to careen on.

and he knows it.

i hope that he is thankful for it. it has allowed his flower to bloom. he has played it right so far, but he has played it, i assure you.

and he can't say no forever. it's part of the deal.

it is true and perhaps slightly possible that he could turn 60 and pack it in. what else is there left, all told?

but he also has a chance to go right up until he drops, much like muddy waters did, his mojo still intact, his passion still palpable, his dignity undented.

but he has to take zeppelin with him. there is no other way. zeppelin is what is taking HIM.

the price for robert has been high, yes. but true art-creating a body of work that shows growth, humanity, and empathy with his audience- is not cost-free.

i also believe that there are times even today when robert doesn't know how he will manage it.

look, i don't have any inside information or connections. i have a few thousand LP's (which stands for long-player record, i was told on another thread) a few hundred discs, some memorabilia, and some vivid emotional reactions from the music and perfomances of led zeppelin that have reminded me as a human how it feels to be human. that's my ticket, that gives me a say, makes me part of the ocean. whether or not that was robert's intention when he first began, i know from continuing to listen to him that he feels that, too.

let's hope for the best-for all of us (band included).

beat

I do think Robert is very grateful for being a part of Led Zep. I've never heard him say anything to the contrary. The fact he's choosing not to tour with them right now (or possibly ever) has nothing to do with how he feels about Zep IMO, but more that Robert, like Zep is always moving to the next musical adventure. He's not really interested in recreating the past. He may lean on it as part of his inspiration, but he's not going to go back and try to relive it.

He's had a lot of unique opportunities over the last few years from what he's done with Strange Sensation to performing with Tinariwen, Rachid Taha, singing in the desert in Mali, working with the Soweta Gospel Choir, Lil Band O Gold, Alison and T Bone etc. This to me is what inspires him to keep going. As far as him turning 60 and packing it in, doubt it. I think there's still a lot of fire left in him. What direction he'll take after he's done touring with Alison, we'll have to wait and see.

As far as touring with Zep, well yes he very well could say no if it's not something. he wants to do. Yes it'll be disappointing for a lot of fans but by the same token, I'd rather he do what makes him happy and have his heart and soul into it than go through the motions. I'm not sure what you mean by part of the deal.

Anyways, just my two cents.