“In a different direction”: The album Robert Plant never considered rock and roll
No other band defined the 1970s AOR era like arena monsters Led Zeppelin. Dropping seminal classic rock albums at the peak of the LP format, each 12.5″ x 12.5″ square from 1969’s eponymous debut to 1975’s Physical Graffiti a vinyl relic which transported one from the bedroom to their mythic world of stirring hard rock stormclouds, far-flung lands of exotica, and sodden mists of folkloric runes.
While they would start to slightly drift off into the stadium excesses that would inspire punk’s revolt around the corner, frontman Robert Plant’s and guitarist Jimmy Page’s sincere embrace of popular music’s evolving trends kept them reined to a level of creative grounding and reaping fruitful future projects.
Like many of his generation, Elvis Presley and the rock and roll lightning bolt struck Plant at a young age, reportedly working hard on imitating the Memphis icon at ten years old. As he grew older and more serious about music, the blues scored him leaving his grammar school, abandoning his training as a chartered accountant to immerse himself in the English Midlands blues scene at 16.
Cutting some obscure singles for CBS records alongside odd-day jobs across the late 1960s, Plant became acquainted with future Zeppelin drummer John Bonham and embraced psychedelia’s encroaching influence on their beloved blues with early joint project Band of Joy.
While going to define rock and roll across the 1970s, Plant’s creative curiosities would pull him away from notalgia circuits and on a road to solo success into the 1980s. Following a heraldry of sorts along with Neil Young for the Lollapalooza generation, Plant would cut his second most notable work with country-bluegrass singer Alison Krauss.
Released to critical acclaim in 2007, Raising Sand would mark a new vocal terrain for Plant encouraging new singing possibilities he likely wouldn’t have discovered were it not for the Illinois star’s influence.
Off the back of 2010’s Band of Joy‘s roots delve into Americana, Plant was asked if the album was a follow-up to his debut with Krauss. “Not really. But, like Raising Sand, it’s not a rock ’n’ roll album,” he told Classic Rock in 2010. “Rock ’n’ roll is all about the frontman, about the adrenalin, and I’ve been making music in that style for 44 years. But, encouraged by Alison Krauss on the last album, I’ve found this amazing alternative way of singing. My voice is navigating in a different direction now. It’s more singing around the hearth at night time with fiddles to this beautiful acoustic music. I think I’ve taken my vocal style and fitted very comfortably into that world”.
Plant was able to ease into the rock and roll frontman routine like a pair of old slippers the very year he was cutting dusky roots with Krauss, leading the 2007 Led Zeppelin reunion at O2 Arena for the Celebration Day film and album to intense fan frenzy. But the new creative frontiers uncovered is where Plant’s vocals now shine, leading to another collaborative effort on 2021’s Raise the Roof.
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