Robert Plant and Alison Krauss have come together from two very different camps, but clearly, they have something together as this is the second time they have collaborated on an album. And through Krauss, Plant feels comfortable peering into his cupboard to bring out a number of searing Zeppelin standards he would not feel comfortable doing otherwise.
Indeed, their version of ‘Rock and Roll’, which initially appeared on the band’s untitled fourth album, is very different to the raucous, rock heavy rendition of the 1971 original.
Zeppelin’s fourth album is considered by many to be the band’s best, melding influences as far afield as jazz, pop, blues and early rap. Still in his twenties when he recorded the mighty vocals for the album, Plant recently remarked that he now resembles the spindly old man on the cover. “I’m now that guy,” he said on his Digging Deep podcast in April. “I pick up kindling everywhere I go and wrap it around with a piece of baling twine and shunt it on my back just in case anybody’s driving by, and they go, ‘There’s that bloke off the ‘Led Zeppelin IV’ album cover!’”
Plant and Krauss released their second album, Raise The Roof, in 2021. It proved to be a sequel of sorts to 2007’s Raising Sand, which netted an impressive number of five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year.
The duo performed at Canandaigua, New York when they sang ‘Rock and Roll’. It’s not the first time that they’ve played ram-shackled renditions of the Led Zeppelin oeuvre, as they previously played ‘Black Dog’ in a more pub-like manner.
In other Plant related news, the former Led Zeppelin singer said he could record a third album with Krauss, given the amount of material they have at their disposal. He claimed that every song had a certain passion, drama and intelligence that was tailored to the narrative of the album in question.
Asked whether he would return to Zeppelin, he purportedly responded that he was no longer a sailor, but a captain, suggesting that he prefers the autonomy of his work over the financial rewards Zeppelin would offer him.