The artist Robert Plant claims to listen to every single day: “What a singer”
No artist will be confined to just one genre for the rest of their lives. Even if it’s the music that someone was raised on and has kept evolving over time, there comes a point where even the most hardened rock fans will want to take a chance on the odd blues tune or even experiment with the likes of jazz from time to time. In the case of Robert Plant, though, he knew that listening to George Jones one day at a time was enough to bring him back down to earth in his later years.
This is strange, considering this is the guy whose harmonies were known to feature the greatest screeches in rock and roll. Jones was known for that signature gravel in his voice, so hearing that come out of the same guy who did ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’ and ‘Black Dog’ would have been a hard sell to any major rock fan.
But Led Zeppelin was never that far away from country at the best of times. Looking through their discography, some of their best ballads include a few folksy touches, whether that’s the early days of Plant singing ‘Babe I’m Gonna Leave You’ or when they pulled pages out of Joni Mitchell’s playbook when putting together ‘Going to California’.
And once Zeppelin called it quits following John Bonham’s death, Plant was more than willing to take a few chances in his solo career. Not every one of them worked like his misguided attempt at new wave on Shaken N Stirred, but there was still much more he had to offer other than being the former ‘Golden God’ singing ‘Stairway to Heaven’.
So when he teamed up with Alison Krauss for the album Raising Sand, it was just another example of him expanding his horizons. For all of the musical outfits he tried on, though, this one fit like a glove, especially when he dipped into his lower register to offset Krauss’s vocals. That meant getting into different kinds of singers, and Plant was absolutely blown away listening to Jones.
Ever since immersing himself in country, Plant said that he needs to hear Jones every time he sings, telling Uncut, “I never even thought about this other side of white American music. I now have to listen to George Jones once a day. Amazing singer. What a singer. So the American time for me was a revelation. I was learning about music that I’d never even touched.”
Despite having nothing to do with his classic material, Jones’s best moments speak to the heart in a completely different way than Zeppelin’s catalogue ever did. Plant was always trying to hit a raw nerve when he sang, but if you listen to a tune like ‘He Stopped Loving Her Today, ‘ Jones knew how to hit on an emotion with pinpoint accuracy every time he stepped up to the microphone.
Although Plant admits that he might not have the same background that Jones did, it’s not that hard for him to identify with what he was going through in his songs. No artist has the same upbringing, but the language of music is a lot more universal than most people give it credit for.
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