Yes, Robert Plant & Allison Krauss. They’ve got an album coming out together in the next couple of weeks. Strange combination.
I don’t have any Allison Krauss CDs, but I’ve always found her voice phenomenal – perhaps one of the greatest female vocalists alive. A voice like an angel. But, it’s my understanding that her songs are almost exclusively country/bluegrass and I couldn’t see myself buying a whole album of country bluegrass.
On the other hand, Robert Plant – old man, rock & roller – how could the two of them create an album together? Well, apparently they did, and apparently they too had doubts initially if it would be possible.
There’s a good video here of them discussing the project and Plant explains that it was a little daunting at first, since he never harmonizes with another vocalist in his music and here he had to sit down and do that with her; and she explains that she’d always sang bluegrass, always within a standard format, never sang with drums before, and was required to explore this new way of singing.
[quote]Former Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant and bluegrass queen Alison Krauss are the favorites to take home the coveted Grammy for album of the year when the music industry’s top honors are handed out on Sunday.
The odd couple scored five nominations for their collaboration, “Raising Sand,” on which they reworked old folk ballads and R&B chestnuts under the watchful eye of producer T-Bone Burnett, the man behind the “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack, the 2002 album of the year winner.
“Raising Sand” was an instant critical and commercial hit, and Plant scuttled a much-rumored Led Zeppelin reunion by opting to tour Europe and America with Krauss instead. . . [/quote] nytimes.com/reuters/2009/02/ … ammys.html
