Plant, Robert
Robert Plant
Singer, songwriter
With the 1988 release of Now And Zen, Robert Plant celebrated his twentieth anniversary as a reigning vocalist of hard rock. Plant has been at rock music’s forefront since he joined Led Zeppelin in 1968. His best-known songs, including “Stairway to Heaven” and “Whole Lotta Love,” are classics that remain the definitive expressions of early 1970s rock. Since the 1980 demise of Led Zeppelin, Plant has undertaken a solo career that reflects his mature but ongoing interest in his chosen genre; Now and Zen has received better reviews than any of his Led Zeppelin work and heralds new directions for the thoughtful rocker. Plant told People magazine that when his group disbanded, after many well-publicized disasters, he still had the ambition to make good music. “My intention was to go in the complete reverse direction from sliding into obscurity,” he said. “After the end of Zeppelin, I didn’t really see anything. But as time went on, I started to pick up the pieces.” Now, touring on his own to sellout crowds, Plant has proven himself an artist “with deep roots in the music’s past but a lively interest in its present—and future—as well,” to quote Rolling Stone reviewer Kurt Loder.
In early 1968 Plant was an obscure singer with a band called Hobbstweedle, based in England’s Midlands region. Rolling Stone contributor Stephen Davis describes the British teenager as “a great tall blond geezer who looked like a fairy prince and possessed a caterwauling voice. They called him the Wild Man of Blues from the Black Country.” Plant’s name came to the attention of Jimmy Page of the Yardbirds; Page was trying to start a new band and needed a charismatic lead singer. Page and some friends travelled to Birmingham to hear Plant perform at an obscure teacher’s college. Plant amazed them with his keening soprano, so out of context with his tall, rugged physique. “It unnerved me just to listen,” Davis quotes Page as saying. “It still does, like a primeval wail.” Davis notes that before too long Page was convinced that Plant had the very voice he needed, one with a “distinctive, highly charged, sexual quality.” Plant accepted the opportunity to work with Page and convinced his friend John Bonham to join the group, too. In October of 1968 Led Zeppelin was founded, with Plant, Page, Bonham, and John Paul Jones.
People correspondent Jim Jerome writes: “From its launch in 1968, Led Zeppelin figured to be testing the dubious proposition that heavy metal could be lighter than air. Yet through the mellower-than-thou 70s, rock’s fiercest foursome was more than buoyant: Led Zep sold some 40 million LPs worldwide [and] set concert attendance records all over the planet.” Plant hit his stride as a lyricist while in the group, composing songs such as “Kashmir,” “Black Dog,” “Misty Mountain
For the Record…
Full name, Robert Anthony Plant; born August20, 1948, in Bromwich, Staffordshire, England; married wife, Maureen, c. 1969; children: Carmen, Logan Romero (a second son, Karac, died in 1977).
Rock singer/songwriter, c. 1965—. Prior to 1968, played with Hobbstweedle, Band of Joy, Alexis Körner. Joined Led Zeppelin, 1968, member until 1980 (other band members were: John Bonham, drums; Jimmy Page, guitar; John Paul Jones, bass, keyboards). Founded the Honeydrippers, 1985. Solo artist, 1980—(current backup band includes: Charlie Jones, bass; Chris Blackwell, drums; Doug Boyle, guitar; Phil Johnstone, keyboards). Performed in film The Song Remains the Same, 1976.
Addresses: Record Company —c/o Phil Carson, Atlantic Records, 75 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10019.
Hop,” and the winsome “Stairway to Heaven,” based on ancient Celtic legends. Davis claims: “With its starkly pagan imagery of trees and brooks, pipers and the May Queen, shining white light and the forest echoing with laughter, [ “Stairway to Heaven” ] seemed to be an invitation to abandon the new traditions and follow the old gods. It expressed a yearning for spiritual transformation deep in the hearts of a new generation. In time, it became Led Zeppelin’s anthem.”
Unfortunately, in a tradition they helped to spawn, the members of Zeppelin conducted themselves with reckless hedonism while on tour, abusing alcohol and drugs and indulging their sexual appetites with ever-willing female fans. Plant told Rolling Stone that he recalls few details from those days. “I can remember a stream of carpenters walking into a room as we were checking out,” he said. “We’d be going out one way, and they’d be going in the other way, with a sign, CLOSED FOR REMODELING, being put on the door. It’s kind of embarrassing. But without being too facetious, that’s what people wanted. Once the seed was sown, it would be terrible if it was just once a week. It had to be all the time.”
Dire predictions followed such excessive behavior, and indeed the group began to be plagued with extreme bad luck. As Davis puts it, by 1975 “the old Zeppelin carnival atmosphere had dissipated. There were strange portents in the air.” In that year Plant and his family were involved in an automobile accident; two years later, Plant’s young son died suddenly of a severe respiratory infection. A certain rivalry had always existed in Led Zeppelin—especially between Plant and Page—and this too escalated. The group finally split up in 1980 following the alcohol-induced death of Bonham, a blow that hit Plant particularly hard. Plant told People that Bonham’s death “was one of the most flattening, heartbreaking parts of my life…. It was so final. I never even thought about the future of the band or music.” When he began to recover, however, Plant returned to the stage with one determination—he would not be content to rehash the Zeppelin classics for the rest of his career. “I went out and stifled whatever cries there were—not the least of them from myself—for Zeppelin material,” he said. “People don’t want to let go of something they loved so much. It’s a shame to say goodbye.”
“Scorned by the punks and embarrassed by cheap Zeppelin imitators, Plant spent his first three solo albums roaming the shifting terrain of Eighties rock in search of an identity that had nothing to do with lemon squeezing or ‘Stairway to Heaven,’” notes David Fri in Rolling Stone. “He never found it. He had a couple of hits along the trail, like ‘Big Log,’ from his 1983 album The Principle of Moments. But for all of their adventuresome drive and hip future-rock angularity, Plant’s solo records in general lacked the unbridled passion and risky spontaneity of Zeppelin in full flight.” Undaunted by the new critical indifference to his work, Plant continued to experiment. One such lark, a five-track EP called The Honeydrippers, Volume One, went platinum in 1985. In that short set of songs, culled from vintage rhythm and blues tunes, Plant was joined by Page, Jeff Beck, and pianist Paul Shaffer, among others. All were surprised by the success of The Honeydrippers, but, courageously, all decided not to proceed exclusively in that direction.
Plant returned to his solo career, forming his own backup band and trying his best not to load his concerts with Zeppelin songs. His fourth solo album, Now and Zen, was a critical and commercial hit. “This record is some kind of stylistic event: a seamless pop fusion of hard guitar rock, gorgeous computerization and sharp, startling songcraft,” writes Loder. “[It] is so rich in conceptual invention that you barely notice that Plant sings better on it—with more tone, control and rhythmic acuity—than he has in the seven years since Led Zeppelin imploded. Better, in some ways, than ever.”
With the success of Now and Zen, Plant has softened toward his Zeppelin music and has added a substantial amount of it to his concert sets. “I wanted to establish an identity that was far removed from the howling and the mud sharks of the Seventies,” he told Rolling Stone. “So if I go onstage now and sing ’Misty Mountain Hop, ’ it’s cool because I’ve given it the time in between. I can come out and do it without having traded on it all the way down the line.” Asked if he is pleased about the enduring popularity of Led Zeppelin music, Plant concluded: “When I look back, I don’t get any sense of great achievement out of the fact that people still like [the music] a lot. I get achievement out of the fact that it was good.”
Selected discography
With Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin, Atlantic, 1969.
Led Zeppelin II, Atlantic, 1969.
Led Zeppelin III, Atlantic, 1970.
Houses of the Holy, Atlantic, 1973.
Physical Graffiti, Swan Song, 1975.
The Presence, Swan Song, 1976.
The Song Remains the Same, Swan Song, 1976.
In Through the Out Door, Swan Song, 1979.
Coda, Swan Song, 1982.
With the Honeydrippers
The Honeydrippers, Volume One, Atlantic, 1985.
Solo LPs
Pictures at Eleven, Swan Song, 1982.
The Principle of Moments, Atlantic, 1983.
Shaken ’n’ Stirred, Es Paranza, 1985.
Now and Zen, Atlantic, 1988.
Sources
Books
Davis, Stephen, Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga, Morrow, 1985.
The Rolling Stone Record Guide, Random House, 1979.
Periodicals
People, August 27, 1979; August 9, 1982.
Rolling Stone, January 31, 1985; July 4, 1985; March 10, 1988; March 24, 1988; July 14-28, 1988.
—Anne Janette Johnson
Plant, Robert
Plant, Robert
Singer, songwriter
With the 1988 release of Now And Zen, Robert Plant celebrated his twentieth anniversary as a reigning vocalist of hard rock. Plant has been at rock music's forefront since he joined Led Zeppelin in 1968. His best-known songs, including "Stairway to Heaven" and "Whole Lotta Love," are classics that remain the definitive expressions of early 1970s rock. Since the 1980 demise of Led Zeppelin, Plant has undertaken a solo career that reflects his mature but ongoing interest in his chosen genre. Now and Zen has received better reviews than any of his Led Zeppelin work, and heralds a new direction for the thoughtful rocker. Plant told People magazine that when his group disbanded after many well-publicized disasters, he still had the ambition to make good music. "My intention was to go in the complete reverse direction from sliding into obscurity," he said. "After the end of Zeppelin, I didn't really see anything. But as time went on, I started to pick up the pieces." Now, touring on his own to sellout crowds, Plant has proven himself an artist "with deep roots in the music's past but a lively interest in its present—and future—as well," according to Rolling Stone reviewer Kurt Loder.
In early 1968 Plant was an obscure singer with a band called Hobbstweedle, based in England's Midlands region. Rolling Stone contributor Stephen Davis described the British teenager as "a great tall blond geezer who looked like a fairy prince and possessed a caterwauling voice. They called him the Wild Man of Blues from the Black Country." Plant's name came to the attention of Jimmy Page of the Yardbirds; Page was trying to start a new band and needed a charismatic lead singer. Page and some friends travelled to Birmingham to hear Plant perform at an obscure teachers' college. Plant amazed them with his keening soprano, so out of context with his tall, rugged physique. "It unnerved me just to listen," Davis quoted Page as saying. "It still does, like a primeval wail." Davis noted that Page was soon convinced that Plant had the very voice he needed, one with a "distinctive, highly charged, sexual quality." Plant accepted the opportunity to work with Page, and convinced his friend John Bonham to join the group as well. In October of 1968 Led Zeppelin was founded, with Plant, Page, Bonham, and John Paul Jones.
The Rise and Fall of Led Zeppelin
People correspondent Jim Jerome wrote: "From its launch in 1968, Led Zeppelin seemed to be testing the dubious proposition that heavy metal could be lighter than air. Yet through the 1970s, rock's fiercest foursome was more than buoyant: Led Zep sold some 40 million LPs worldwide [and] set concert attendance records all over the planet." Plant hit his stride as a lyricist while in the group, composing songs such as "Kashmir," "Black Dog," "Misty Mountain Hop," and the winsome "Stairway to Heaven," based on ancient Celtic legends. Davis claimed: "With its starkly pagan imagery of trees and brooks, pipers and the May Queen, shining white light and the forest echoing with laughter, "Stairway to Heaven" seemed to be an invitation to abandon the new traditions and follow the old gods. It expressed a yearning for spiritual transformation deep in the hearts of a new generation. In time, it became Led Zeppelin's anthem."
Unfortunately, in a tradition they helped to spawn, the members of Zeppelin conducted themselves with reckless hedonism while on tour, abusing alcohol and drugs and indulging their sexual appetites with ever-willing female fans. Plant told Rolling Stone that he recalled few details from those days. "I can remember a stream of carpenters walking into a room as we were checking out," he said. "We'd be going out one way, and they'd be going in the other way, with a sign, CLOSED FOR REMODELING, being put on the door. It's kind of embarrassing."
Dire predictions followed the excessive behavior, and indeed the group began to be plagued with extreme bad luck. As Davis put it, by 1975 "the old Zeppelin carnival atmosphere had dissipated." In that year Plant and his family were involved in an automobile accident; two years later, Plant's young son died unexpectedly of a severe respiratory infection. A certain rivalry had always existed in Led Zeppelin—especially between Plant and Page—and this also escalated. The group finally split up in 1980, following the alcohol-induced death of Bonham. Plant told People that Bonham's death "was one of the most flattening, heartbreaking parts of my life. ... It was so final. I never even thought about the future of the band or music." When he began to recover, however, Plant returned to the stage with one determination—he would not be content to rehash the Zeppelin classics for the rest of his career. "I went out and stifled whatever cries there were—not the least of them from myself—for Zeppelin material," he said. "People don't want to let go of something they loved so much. It's a shame to say goodbye."
In Search of an Identity
"Scorned by the punks and embarrassed by cheap Zeppelin imitators, Plant spent his first three solo ums roaming the shifting terrain of Eighties rock in search of an identity that had nothing to do with lemon squeezing or 'stairway to Heaven,'" noted David Fricke in Rolling Stone. "He never found it. ... For all of their adventuresome drive and hip future-rock angularity, Plant's solo records in general lacked the unbridled passion and risky spontaneity of Zeppelin in full flight." Undaunted by the new critical indifference to his work, Plant continued to experiment. One such lark, a five-track EP called The Honeydrippers, Volume One, went platinum in 1985. In that short set of songs, culled from vintage rhythm and blues tunes, Plant was joined by Page, Jeff Beck, and pianist Paul Shaffer, among others. All were surprised by the success of The Honeydrippers, but courageously decided not to proceed exclusively in that direction.
Plant returned to his solo career, forming his own backup band and trying his best not to load his concerts with Zeppelin songs. His fourth solo album, Now and Zen, was a critical and commercial hit. "This record is some kind of stylistic event: a seamless pop fusion of hard guitar rock, gorgeous computerization and sharp, startling songcraft," wrote Loder. "[It] is so rich in conceptual invention that you barely notice that Plant sings better on it—with more tone, control and rhythmic acuity—than he has in the seven years since Led Zeppelin imploded. Better, in some ways, than ever."
For the Record . . .
Born Robert Anthony Plant on August 20, 1948, in Bromwich, Staffordshire, England; married wife, Maureen, c. 1969; children: Carmen, Logan Romero (a second son, Karac, died in 1977).
Rock singer/songwriter, c. 1965–. Prior to 1968, played with Hobbstweedle, Band of Joy, and Alexis Korner; joined Led Zeppelin, 1968; member until 1980; per formed in film The Song Remains the Same, 1976; founded the Honeydrippers, 1985; solo artist, 1980–; released solo albums beginning in 1982, including Pictures at Eleven, 1982; Now and Zen, 1988; Fate of Nations, 1993; Dreamland, 2002; Mighty Rearranger, 2005.
Addresses: Record company—Atlantic Records, 75 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10019. Website— Robert Plant Official Website: http://www.robertplant.com.
With the success of Now and Zen, Plant softened toward his Zeppelin music and began adding a substantial amount of it to his concert sets. "I wanted to establish an identity that was far removed from the howling and the mud sharks of the Seventies," he told Rolling Stone. "So if I go onstage now and sing 'Misty Mountain Hop,' it's cool because I've given it the time in between. I can come out and do it without having traded on it all the way down the line." Asked if he was pleased about the enduring popularity of Led Zeppelin music, Plant concluded: "When I look back, I don't get any sense of great achievement out of the fact that people still like [the music] a lot. I get achievement out of the fact that it was good."
Finding a Voice
Critical and public acceptance of Now and Zen reinvigorated the adventuresome Plant to further his musical and thematic explorations. His follow-up album, Manic Nirvana, went gold despite yielding no hit singles. In 1993 he released Fate of Nations, another critically lauded effort that featured socially conscious and personal themes in such songs as "Great Spirit" and "I Believe," the latter a song inspired by the death of Plant's son in the 1970s. Musically, Plant employed the same core band as on his previous effort, and collaborated with them on the songwriting, which gave the album a cohesion missing on much of his earlier solo work. The band willingly accompanied Plant on his excursions to exotic musical territory, whether it was the Middle Eastern and North African flavor of such songs as "Calling to You," the Celtic backing vocals of "Come into My Life," or a faithful rendering of Tim Hardin's folk standard "If I Were a Carpenter."
In 1994 Plant reunited with Page for No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded, a successful television special and subsequent album release that was almost as well known for its exclusion of Zeppelin bassist Jones, with whom Plant had publicly feuded since the dissolution of their band. Unledded contained acoustic reworkings of such classic Zeppelin tunes as "The Battle of Evermore," and three new songs. Two of the original songs were recorded in Morocco and featured world musicians. The duo toured in 1995, and released their first album of original material since the demise of Zeppelin, 1998's Walking into Clarksdale. The album's title refers to the Mississippi Delta town where the blues genre took hold. The partnership between Plant and Page then went into hiatus.
In 2002 Plant returned to recording with Dreamland, a strong album of cover material and original songs. Among the covers included on the album are the 1960s' garage rock chestnut "Hey Joe," the Tim Buckley ballad, Song to the Siren," and Bob Dylan's "One More Cup of Coffee." In 2003 Plant released a two-disc retrospective of his solo career, featuring recordings made both before and after his tenure with Zeppelin. He reunited his band from Dreamland, now collectively known as the Strange Sensation, for the 2005 release Mighty Rearranger. The diversity of styles and earnestness of Plant's performances prompted Uncut critic Nigel Williamson to write: "Call it a comeback, if you like. The simple truth is that as a mature statement by someone who's done it all, but still retains a desire to create something new and fresh, Mighty Rearranger is a record of considerable depth, admirable adventure and surprising passion."
Selected discography
Solo albums
Pictures at Eleven, Swan Song, 1982.
The Principle of Moments, Atlantic, 1983.
Shaken 'n' Stirred, Es Paranza, 1985.
Now and Zen, Atlantic, 1988.
Manic Nirvana, Atlantic, 1990.
Fate of Nations, Atlantic, 1993.
Dreamland, Universal, 2002.
Sixty Six to Timbuktu, Atlantic, 2003.
Mighty Rearranger, Sanctuary/Es Paranza, 2005.
With Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin, Atlantic, 1969.
Led Zeppelin II, Atlantic, 1969.
Led Zeppelin III, Atlantic, 1970.
Houses of the Holy, Atlantic, 1973.
Physical Graffiti, Swan Song, 1975.
Presence, Swan Song, 1976.
The Song Remains the Same, Swan Song, 1976.
In Through the Out Door, Swan Song, 1979.
Coda, Swan Song, 1982.
With the Honeydrippers
The Honeydrippers, Volume One, Atlantic, 1985.
With Jimmy Page
No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded, Atlantic, 1994.
Walking into Clarksdale, Atlantic, 1998.
Sources
Books
Davis, Stephen, Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga, Morrow, 1985.
The Rolling Stone Record Guide, Random House, 1979.
Periodicals
Entertainment Weekly, May 13, 2005.
People, August 27, 1979; August 9, 1982; May 23, 2005.
Rolling Stone, January 31, 1985; July 4, 1985; March 10, 1988; March 24, 1988; July 14-28, 1988.
Uncut, May 2005.
—Anne Janette Johnson andBruce Walker
Plant, Robert
ROBERT PLANT
Born: Robert Anthony Plant; West Bromwich, Staffordshire, England, 20 August 1948
Genre: Rock
Best-selling album since 1990: No Quarter: Jimmy Page & Robert Plant Unledded (1994)
Hit songs since 1990: "Hurting Kind (I've Got My Eyes on You)," "Calling to You"
Singer Robert Plant rose to superstardom as the lead singer for Led Zeppelin, whom many consider the greatest hard rock band in history. Plant endured personal tragedy and the letdown of Led Zeppelin's breakup to prove detractors wrong with a successful solo career that has outdistanced the other two living members of the band.
Stairway to the Top
Plant entered hastily into musical prominence when Yardbird guitarist Jimmy Page discovered him toiling with a regional band in Birmingham at a local college. Page was searching for a singer to join himself and bassist John Paul Jones to form the New Yardbirds. Plant recommended his pal John Bonham as drummer and the foursome began making rock and roll history in 1968 under the name Led Zeppelin. Until their breakup in 1980, Led Zeppelin sold more than 50 million albums (that total has grown to more than 100 million in 2003) and set the standard for the hard rock genre. They built on their blues/rock beginnings by infusing groundbreaking musical innovation into their sound. Plant gained a reputation for his screeching vocals, high moans, and sexy stage presence. He also wrote most of the band's lyrics, leaning heavily on Celtic mysticism to create songs with rich imagery, including one of rock's ultimate anthems, "Stairway to Heaven." Although never a favorite of critics, Led Zeppelin ruled the rock and roll universe for nearly ten years until their excessive lifestyle—sex, drugs, and rock and roll personified—began taking its toll.
In 1977 Plant suffered tragedy when his young son, Karac, died of a severe stomach infection. Led Zeppelin cancelled their world tour and Plant went into seclusion. He emerged sixteen months later and the band began to pick up momentum only to fold after Bonham died suddenly following a night of heavy drinking in 1980. That officially ended Led Zeppelin, although rumors and hopes for their reunion exist into the new millennium. In 2000, VH1 selected the band for the number one slot on its program 100 Greatest Hard Rock Bands.
Plant spent the 1980s in a catch-22—trying to capitalize on his Led Zeppelin fame, while also distancing himself from the band to forge an identity as a solo artist. His first effort, Pictures at 11 (1982), showed a revitalized Plant. The album features Phil Collins on drums and it spawned Plant's first solo hit, a slashing rock tune titled, "Burning Down One Side." He released a second album, The Principle of Moments (1983), which produced another hit, "Big Log." Plant followed with a world tour that was incessantly plagued by his audiences' lust for Led Zeppelin music. Plant appeased them at times, but for the most part stubbornly stuck to his own set list.
Except for a dalliance with a supergroup called the Honeydrippers (which featured Jimmy Page, guitarist Jeff Beck, and keyboardist Paul Shaffer), Plant found definition and confidence as a solo artist with four solo albums through the 1980s, scoring his best success with Now and Zen (1988). Incidentally, the Honeydrippers released one record, a compilation of just five 1950s-era songs. One of them, an old hit by Phil Phillips & The Twilights, "Sea of Love" (1959), surprised the band when it became a huge success. Plant, Page, and Jones teased Led Zeppelin fans by reuniting for a few songs in 1985 at a Live Aid Concert and for a poorly played set in 1988 at Madison Square Garden for Atlantic Records' fortieth anniversary bash.
The Song Remained the Same
By 1990 Plant's solo career was firmly established. His next two releases, Manic Nirvana (1990) and Fate of Nations (1993), were moneymaking and listeners began to stop comparing Plant's music to Led Zeppelin. Even when Plant performed Led Zeppelin songs in his concerts, he did it more for the joy of reliving them than out of necessity to keep his audience happy. His albums feature a mix of diverse rock that contains altering rhythms and dashes of non-rock instruments like mandolins and harps. Plant's voice is one of rock music's most notable. Its high tones and guttural wails drip with breathy impertinence and Plant utilizes his wide range like an instrument, making it ebb and flow with the tide of the music.
To the delight of Led Zeppelin fans, Plant and Page made good on a much-hyped reunion and their first effort was an album on the MTV live acoustic venue, Unplugged. Their release, No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded (1994), contains mostly lesser known Led Zeppelin songs and features some new material classified as "new world" music. Plant's howl at the top of "Since I've Been Loving You" evokes an entire decade of Led Zeppelin music, although, bravely, little else on this album does. Most of the music reflects Plant's affinity for exploring the remote parts of the world and his fascination with Middle Eastern cultures and Celtic lore. He is accompanied not only by Page, but also by an eleven-piece Egyptian orchestra, an authentic Moroccan ensemble, and the London Symphony Orchestra. (Jones is not included.) The album's highlight is a whirling rendition of "Kashmir." Plant and Page also rework versions of other Led Zeppelin fare such as "No Quarter," "Thank You," "Gallows Pole," and "Four Sticks." Plant and Page promoted the successful selling album with a world tour that lasted on and off for nearly two years. They interrupted their tour in 1995 to perform with Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith and Neil Young at Led Zeppelin's induction ceremony into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Plant paired again with Page for his next recording effort, Walking into Clarksdale (1998). This time the duo wrote new material, but the long anticipated album disappointed many listeners and sales were low. While Plant had somewhat stepped out of the shadow of Led Zeppelin in his solo career, the combination of Plant and Page together could not. Fans excused the creative innovation of the first album, but expected more of their seminal sound from Walking into Clarksdale. For many listeners it was troubling that the album contains barely a trace of blues. The album's title is a reference to Clarksdale, Mississippi, often credited as the birthplace of the blues—the music of Plant and Page's youth. Instead, the album sticks to aesthetically charged rock with leanings once again toward Middle Eastern sounds.
After five years of touring off and on with Page, Plant began playing very small venues in the United Kingdom with a group composed of old friends, Priory of Brion. They played a repertoire of mostly 1960s folk, pop, and acid rock songs. Shortly after, he traveled the same back roads with a different band of his assemblage called Strange Sensation. His exploration of 1960s music continued and his next solo release, Dreamland (2002), contains his renditions of ten songs from that genre including the often done classic, "Hey Joe," and Bob Dylan's "One More Cup of Coffee."
Since his rush to fame in 1968, little of Plant's look and singing style have changed. He still has golden locks hanging near the waist of his tall frame. Plant has been successful, as music trends change, to resist any major attempts to reinvent his style, choosing instead to let the trends adapt to him.
SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:
Pictures at 11 (Atlantic, 1982); The Principle of Moments (Atlantic, 1983); Shaken 'n' Stirred (Atlantic, 1985); Now and Zen (Atlantic, 1988); Manic Nirvana (Atlantic, 1990); Fate of Nations (Atlantic, 1993); No Quarter: Jimmy Page & Robert Plant Unledded (1994); Walking into Clarksdale (Atlantic, 1998); Dreamland (Atlantic, 2002).
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
T. Horkins, Led Zeppelin (New York, 1998); S. Davis, Hammer of the Gods (New York, 2001); R. Cole and R. Trubo, Stairway to Heaven: Led Zeppelin Uncensored (New York, 2002).
donald lowe