When Robert Plant collected the 2009 Grammy for Album of the Year for Raising Sand, and a further five more for his work with bluegrass singer Alison Krauss, it confirmed what has been apparent, that Plant is one of the few musicians of his generation whose appetite for musical innovation remains keen.
His incredible new album Band Of Joy was recorded at Gillian Welch and David Rawlings' Woodland studio in Nashville, an important hub from the Seventies which the duo rescued from oblivion. Despite Plant's name being above the title, it's clearly a collective endeavour by him and the musicians, built on mutual sensitivity.
"I found it incredibly refreshing, the lightness of it all was wonderful," he recalls. "And I didn't want to lose the essence of that. After all the things I've done, the idea of just stepping forward with other people and letting them take the lead, is an exciting prospect. And with Buddy, Patty and Darrell on this record, it promises to be exciting... Nothing is daunting for me – but forever challenging. I have to be able to just get out there into the great drift of music and possibility, and hang onto great themes and ideas."
Opening with the throbbing pow-wow of Los Lobos's 'Angel Dance', the album encompasses the glittering drone-rock of Low's 'Silver Rider' and 'Monkey', the Fifties-style country-gospel harmonies which transform The Kelly Brothers' Sixties soul classic 'Falling In Love Again', the desolate banjo-driven interpretation of 'Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down', the transplanted English/Appalachian folk ballad 'Cindy, I'll Marry You Some Day', and the jangling blues imagery of 'Central Two-0-Nine',built around a studio jam. It all makes for Robert Plant's most eclectic work so far, an album which encompasses continents of influence and oceans of emotional depth, continuing the explorations of Raising Sand into bold new territory.
This biography was provided by the artist or their representative.
