Raising Sand is the strangest collaboration, on paper. Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin (amid the umpteenth rumor that the Zep-Heads are reuniting) and the bluegrass chanteuse Alison Krauss aren’t the first two people you could foresee making music together. The match is brilliant from the outset though. Apparently, the reciprocal admirers have been meaning to get together for seven years and when they sang together during a Lead Belly tribute they realized their harmonies really clicked. They bonded over their mutual of roots music, which shows up liberally on the album. Covers crosscut the American musical landscape – Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, Gene Clark, Townes van Zandt and Doc Watson among them – yet Plant and Krauss make these standards their own.On the opening Roland Salley cover, “Killing the Blues,” when the singers push towards the song’s airtight harmony: “Somebody said they saw me/Swinging the world by the tail.” Nothing seems antiseptic though because both the backing band and the two singers keep things loose.
T Bone Burnett steers an untreated album full of blues, rock and roots tunes as the singers showcase what they do best for the most part. The backup band is more than serviceable as well. Marc Ribot, Norman Blake, Mike Seeger on various instruments with bassist Dennis Crouch and Jay Bellerose on drums make sure this is not just a duet album.
Krauss melts hearts, like she always does, but Robert Plant trades his calling card howl to softer timbres that wedge into your ears slowly. Be sure to check out the collaborators’ cover of the Everly Brothers’ tune “Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On).”
mp3:> Robert Plant & Alison Krauss: “Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)”
[From Raising Sand; Out Now Decca]
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This is good stuff – just listened to a borrowed copy. I’m not a Robert Plant fan, so I can leave tracks 1, 9 & 11, but otherwise where he keeps it toned down ’tis great. Krauss is sublime, and T-Bone is masterful behind the desk as usual.