Led Zeppelin icon Robert Plant spoke to Broken Record Podcast’s Rick Rubin and explained the tricky part about his way of signing. Also, Plant recalled how he met with bluegrass-country singer Alison Krauss at a special event and stated that she made him realize his biggest flaw as a vocalist.
Years ago, Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame museum invited Robert Plant for the special 2004 tribute to bluesman Lead Belly. As they had been in contact for a while, Plant invited Alison Krauss to sing with him, marking the beginning of their collaboration. During a conversation, the bluegrass singer asked Plant whether he wanted to work on collaborative albums with another vocalist and even the idea of that surprised the Led Zeppelin legend.
The main reason behind that was Plant had always been the only vocalist in both the band’s works and his solo ones. In addition, Plant had a very different singing style, based on shifting notes and melodies, and was unpredictable as even he didn’t know what he was going to sing next. However, the musician invited Krauss to a studio session while he, Justin Adams, and David Hidalgo worked on Lead Belly stuff. Plant stated that spending time with her at the studio was funny and eye-opening for him.
During the sessions, Krauss shared her thoughts about Plant’s singing style, saying that his unpredictable singing would pose a problem while singing together, as even Robert doesn’t know what he’ll say next. The Led Zeppelin frontman agreed with her, and the duo began writing and composing their first collaborative album, ‘Raising Sand,’ which was released on October 23, 2007. The album became proof that Plant could overcome this problem and collaborate with other vocalists.
Plant stated in his interview that:
“I had a communication with Alison, and there was this idea of like ‘Have you ever thought about singing with somebody else?’ and I thought ‘Well, how on earth would I be able to sing alongside somebody else?’ Because I don’t know what I’m going to sing next in the middle of a song that’s got a melody. I maneuver melodies around like crazy, but anyway, she came to the rehearsals in Cleveland, and it was a very warm and endearing moment of meeting this new person.
She could play like a fiddle plane; it was insane. Justin Adams was with me from The Sensational Space Shifters, and I had a word with David Hidalgo, and he brought Los Lobos with him. I asked him if he would bring his mariachi-esque instruments to Quattro so we could do Lead Belly stuff, but we weren’t going to hammer it. Because the worst thing in the world we British rock groups can do is hammer the blues into submission.
So we did, and Allison was very comical. We laughed a lot because she straightened me up and said, with that sort of tone of affected tone of voice, ‘How can I sing with you if I don’t know what the hell you’re going to sing next? How can I harmonize with you when nobody knows what the hell you’re doing, including you?’ I said, ‘Yes, that’s a very good point.'”
Plant and Krauss released their second collaborative studio album entitled ‘Raise the Roof’ on November 19, 2021, and its songs ‘The Price of Love,’ ‘Go Your Way’ and ‘Trouble With My Lover’ became famous worldwide. Their harmony and well-crafted sounds received very positive reviews from music critics and longtime fans.
