Review of July 13, 2010 Memphis, TN

Originally appeared in Wall Street Journal

By JIM FUSILLI

Robert Plant’s new band borrows the name of his old one. No, not Led Zeppelin. It’s Band of Joy, a late-’60s group of which Mr. Plant was a member with soon-to-be-Zeppelin drummer John Bonham. Unlike its namesake, the new unit doesn’t offer a British take on blues and soul. It plays Americana music and, as demonstrated here last week, does so with intelligence and inventiveness—even when its leader is revisiting his Zeppelin days.

Band of Joy’s eponymous album won’t be out until Sept. 14, but the group worked its songs as if they were already an established part of the 61-year-old Mr. Plant’s vast repertoire. For an opening night, the band—featuring Buddy Miller on guitar, Darrell Scott on several stringed instruments, Patty Griffin on guitar, Byron House on bass and Marco Giovino on drums—was remarkably tight. It found precedent for its airy, tasteful, bottom-rich and occasionally fierce music not only in the ‘07 Plant-Alison Krauss collaboration, “Raising Sand,” but also in Mr. Plant’s fruitful solo career, now almost twice as long as his stint in Zeppelin. ||Continue reading||

Review of July 16, 2010 Tulsa, OK

Originally appeared on tulsaworld.com

By JENNIFER CHANCELLOR World Scene Writer

Robert Plant dressed for comfort in a dark tee, relaxed dungarees and pointed leather cowboy boots. But this was no casual affair.

The legendary singer and songman’s concert Friday night at the Brady Theater in Tulsa was his first here in half a decade, and the sold-out audience was ready for him.

“Welcome to the first intergalactical tour of the Band of Joy,” Plant yelled after bowing low to a standing, screaming crowd. “At least the first tour since the first half of the last century.”

Plant’s U.S. tour with his band started this week – the first official outing for the English band in more than 40 years. He and bandmate John Bonham went on to join Led Zeppelin in the late ‘60s.

Plant’s Friday set was an adept blend of the American roots he’s explored so thoroughly for nearly half a century. There was blues and country and bluegrass and rockabilly (boy, was there) and gospel and straight-up rock, all helmed by his agile trademark vocals.

His set was fitted with harmonica, five supporting musicians and, yes, even a washboard. Tunes included the new and classic, from the ‘70s Zep standard “Rock and Roll,” ‘80s solo hit “Tall Cool One” to “Rich Woman” from the Grammy-winning 2007 album “Raising Sand” and Band of Joy’s debut of “Angel Dance.”

He erupted into laughter early in the set, as he witnessed recognition — and ecstasy — wash over he crowd after the beginning bars of the Led Zeppelin oldie “Misty Mountain Hop.”

Band of Joy featured the down-home inspiration of Patty Griffin on vocals; the unrivaled rockabilly and surf-guitar of Buddy Miller, versatile former Sun Studio musician Byron House on stand-up bass, Darrel Scott played everything from pedal steel guitar to banjo and Marco Giovino ruled the drum kit.

Band of Joy happily ripped through some six new tunes from its upcoming studio album, including “House of Cards,” “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down,” “Central Two O Nine.”

A highlight of Friday night’s show, they performed a gospel-esque medley including “Twelve Gates to the City” and “Wade in the Water.”

The band emblazoned its distinctive iron brand on each tune performed, including “Gallows Pole,” “Over the Hills and Far Away,” “Down to the Sea,” “Rich Woman,” “Thank You,” “Houses of the Holy,” “Please Read the Letter” and more.

Shimmering surf-rock vibrato, doghouse-style bass and honky-tonk slide guitar glimmered with emotional intensity.

Griffin - Plant’s vocal His Girl Friday - complimented and counterbalanced his distinctive vocals, adding richness and texture and depth. At times, he seemed a little tipsy in the wake of her charm.

A misfire at “All The King’s Men” even earned the 61-year-old a round of applause, as Plant rebooted the tune from the top and laughed it off. The capacity crowd was pleasantly ornery, whooping and feeding into — and from – the band.

Opening act the North Mississippi Allstars Duo LuCo (brothers Luther and Cody Dickinson) rumbled and wailed through a set of up-tempo, bluesy, rocky, jam-infused Americana — the pair as drummer-keyboardist and guitarist, mixing vocal harmonies with finger slide and staccato rhythm.

Review of July 16, 2010 AK

Originally appeared on ArkansasOnline.com

By Jack Hill

Robert Plant and his Band of Joy made a joyful noise Thursday night at Robinson Center Music Hall for a horde of adoring fans. The crowd soaked it all up, for sure, on a night when the oppressive summer heat might have kept some folks away.

Those who braved it, however, were richly rewarded with an hour and 45 minutes of Plant’s new music as created by the five musicians who backed him up, as well as some of his solo work and the songs from his Led Zeppelin days.

Still able to belt out songs with his amazing voice 42 years after the start of his Zeppelin career, Plant did keep his shirt on, something he didn’t always do back then. With Patty Griffin singing and Buddy Miller playing guitar, Plant had plenty of help, plus multi-instrumentalist Darrell Scott on pedal steel, banjo, mandolin and guitar rounded out the sound nicely, with a firm foundation provided by bassist Byron House and drummer Marco Giovino.

Plant opened with “Down to the Sea,” from one of his solo albums, following with Plant’s take on a Los Lobos song, “Angel Dance,” one of several from the forthcoming Band of Joy album, set for release Sept. 14. Some of the best of the new songs were versions of Townes Van Zandt’s “Harm’s Swift Way,” Richard Thompson’s “House of Cards,” Low’s “Monkey” and the Uncle Tupelo arrangement of old traditional, “Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down.”

Led Zeppelin fans were treated to several classic cuts, the best of which were “Houses of the Holy,” “Misty Mountain Hop” and “Rock and Roll,” which put the cap on a generous encore segment before the band bowed out.

Opening act honors went to Cody and Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi All-Stars, who are sons of the late, great Jim Dickinson, a Little Rock-born musician/producer who brought up his boys in the Memphis area, specifically north Mississippi, as their name suggests. With guitar, drums and keyboards between them, the Dickinson brothers made an endearing racket themselves, making the most of their half-hour set.

Review of July 13, 2010 Memphis, TN

originally appeared on commercialappeal.com

by Bob Mehr

It was, as Robert Plant noted, a night of firsts.

Plant’s Tuesday concert at downtown’s Orpheum marked the first show for the revived version of his Band of Joy in 43 years, the first night of his current tour, and his first performance in Memphis since being officially honored by the city.

Plant and his five-piece outfit took the stage for a nearly two-hour set that cut a wide swath across his career, from his Led Zeppelin glories to his recent Grammy-winning collaboration with Alison Krauss, Raising Sand, as well as offering a preview of a new Band of Joy album due later this year. ||Continue reading||

Originally appeared on thisislondon.co.uk
By John Aizlewood

If anything, the extraordinary acclaim that greeted Led Zeppelin’s one-show comeback in 2007 served only to turn singer Robert Plant away from the mothership as he resisted the entreaties of Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones to dilute the reunion with more shows. Last night, at a benefit which raised more than £200,000 for Cancer Research and coincidentally celebrated Abbey Road’s elevation to listed building status in the wake of sell-off speculation, Plant pushed both boundaries and buttons.

He was backed by the London Oriana Choir, whose thrilling vocal pyrotechnics transcended both a patchy sound and a disastrous start where Plant’s band mistakenly struck up Stairway To Heaven, much to their leader’s displeasure.

Declaring Scott Walker’s challenging 1995 album Tilt “a sensational moment in pop history”, Plant covered its half-sung, half-spoken opener, Farmer In The City, assuredly snuggling into its unsettling strangeness. Whole Lotta Love it wasn’t; rather brilliant it was.

The avant-garde beckoned. Instead, Plant wrapped his still mighty vocals around the gorgeous South Seas lullaby I Bid You Goodnight. Even so, he was in chippy mood, describing himself as “old and bitter” after grumpily anointing the Oriana Choir as “the future of rock’n’roll because it looks like there’s not much else going on”.

A third and final song meant a third and final curveball. On what would have been Abbey Road stalwart George Harrison’s 67th birthday, Plant was joined by support acts including David Gray (chippy himself earlier when introducing Fugitive to the noisy glass-clinking crowd with an acid “this one goes very well with champagne”), on a chaotic but inspired My Sweet Lord.

A strange evening, but these days that’s how Robert Plant prefers it.

originally appeared on houstonpress.com

By William Michael Smith

Led Zeppelin shouter Robert Plant and country/pop vocalist Alison Krauss seem like a highly unlikely duo. When I heard they’d made an album together called Raising Sand, the pairing seemed so odd I didn’t really even want to hear it. I thought their two voices would clash like Lucinda Williams and Robbie Fulks.

But the woman in my life, a pretty fair vocalist in her own right, kept telling me I had to listen to it. Now she and I don’t exactly listen in lockstep; she likes Rufus Wainright and Julie Andrews, I like Drive-By Truckers and Rockpile. But when she handed me a copy I felt I owed her the courtesy of giving it a shot. What I heard was a wonderful sampler of great country covers along with a couple of rockers and a few pleasantly off-kilter ballads like Sam Phillips’ amazing “Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us.”

Suffice to say, Raising Sand has since become one of my favorite, go-back-to albums. [Ed note: hear hear.] I honestly never tire of it. It went on to win nearly every possible accolade that the Americana Music Association conveys, and many, many Grammys including Album of the Year.

The song from the album that absolutely magnetizes me is “Killing The Blues.” Written by Chris Isaak’s bass player Rowland Salley, the tune has been covered by Shawn Colvin, Chris Smither and John Prine.

I was sitting in my watering hole Saturday night when the Plant/Krauss version came on the jukebox, and it reminded me again of the greatness of the track and why the album has been so lauded. It has everything a great country song needs: stylish yet tasteful low-end guitar twang, subtle steel guitar, killer voices, a lyric to melt all the ice in your soul, and producer T-Bone Burnett’s always amazing sense of tempo and pace.

It is one of the tragedies of Hurricane Ike that Plant and Krauss cancelled their show scheduled for the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion last September. Though rumors have already started circulating about a Sand sequel, the chance to see this in person may never come again.

Originally appeared in The National (UAE)

by Oliver Good

Festival goers were treated to stunning live performances from two legendary singers on the final night of Womad: the British rocker Robert Plant and the Egyptian pop star Mohamed Mounir. The two performers drew Saturday’s largest crowds, on a weekend that organisers have already called an astounding success.

Despite being billed as a “special guest” for the British guitarist Justin Adams and the Gambian master of the ritti (a rough-hewn one-stringed fiddle) Juldeh Camara, Plant took centre stage for the African-inspired blues-rock set. Playing to the crowd, the 60-year-old singer included several songs by Led Zeppelin, the band that launched his career, in the set. ||Continue reading||

Originally appeared on Tricities.com

by Joe Tennis

A big night at the Grammys – with multiple wins – shined more light on the recent vocal combination of Robert Plant singing with Alison Krauss.

A godfather of hard rock, known for a dozen years as the frontman for Led Zeppelin, Plant might, on the surface, seem an unlikely match for Krauss, the angelic voiced fiddler who was once the darling of bluegrass music – and one, too, who dared stretch its limits.

But to know Plant through all the years is to know that the one-of-a-kind crooner has always been up for a musical challenge – and is clearly interested in a variety of styles.

So comes “Raising Sand,” the Grammy-winning duet album of largely acoustic tunes and soft rockers that should not be overlooked by any fan of Led Zeppelin or Krauss.

This pair of tall talents rolls through 13 tracks, skillfully produced by T. Bone Burnett. The hit “Gone Gone Gone” rocks with a funky groove, while “Please Read the Letter” shows a more plaintive side, capable of lifting heartstrings. From “Rich Woman” to “Fortune Teller,” this entire album is a joyous musical journey.

Bottom line: It would be a crime if this pair did not record together again.

Originally appeared on tonight.co.za

By Theresa Smith

(Rating: 4 stars)

Acoustic folk, country and bluegrass stripped to the core and tenderly recrafted.

This is an elegant homage to all that is good about Americana, but you have to wonder whether it would have been noticed by the mainstream if it wasn’t for Robert Plant’s name. Better known as an influential rock singer, Plant has been making serious inroads on the blues/folk scene for years and this Grammy Award-winning collaboration with bluegrass queen, Alison Krauss, is an unusual project that highlights good music over commercial consideration.

It’s an indulgence in that most of the tracks are not the sugary pap we usually hear on our radio stations. The songs are actually excellent re-interpretations (read covers) about dark subjects like saying goodbye, loss and leaving, with some upbeat rock thrown in for good measure.

The banjo on Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us lends the song a whimsical feel, but Krauss’s haunting voice grounds the song, while her fiddle playing on Nothin’ is a subtle counterpoint to the banjo, neither of which can overshadow Plant’s very Led Zep misery as he sings: “Hey mama, when you leave/Don’t leave a thing behind/I don’t want nothing.”

Krauss’s clear soprano is well-matched by her fiddle playing skills as well as the pedal steel guitar used on certain of the tracks and she turns Trampled Rose into a poignant existential lament.

Neither twangs, but they still turn Gone Gone Gone and Please Read the Letter into country songs, reminding us that talent will eventually out. - Theresa Smith

Originally appeared on reddirtreport.com

By Andrew W. Griffin

It was approximately a week ago that the stunning 2007 album Raising Sand, featuring the voices of bluegrass star Alison Krauss and rock legend Robert Plant, swept five categories at the Grammy Awards, including album of the year and best contemporary folk/Americana album.

And while it has been out for well over a year, Red Dirt Report has finally gotten a chance to listen to Raising Sand. And after a few spins, the hairs on the back of your neck are raised simply due to the album’s dark beauty, eclectic nature and spot-on production value. ||Continue reading||