http://www.robertplant.com/press/its-zeppelin-country/
It’s Zeppelin Country
07.19.2010
Memphis: Robert Plant’s new band borrows the name of his old one. No, not Led Zeppelin. It’s Band of Joy, a late-’60s group of which Mr. Plant was a member with soon-to-be-Zeppelin drummer John Bonham. Unlike its namesake, the new unit doesn’t offer a British take on blues and soul. It plays Americana music and, as demonstrated here last week, does so with intelligence and inventiveness—even when its leader is revisiting his Zeppelin days.
Band of Joy’s eponymous album won’t be out until Sept. 14, but the group worked its songs as if they were already an established part of the 61-year-old Mr. Plant’s vast repertoire. For an opening night, the band—featuring Buddy Miller on guitar, Darrell Scott on several stringed instruments, Patty Griffin on guitar, Byron House on bass and Marco Giovino on drums—was remarkably tight. It found precedent for its airy, tasteful, bottom-rich and occasionally fierce music not only in the ‘07 Plant-Alison Krauss collaboration, “Raising Sand,” but also in Mr. Plant’s fruitful solo career, now almost twice as long as his stint in Zeppelin.
But Zeppelin was never far from Mr. Plant’s mind: The new group played seven songs associated with Messrs. Plant and Bonham, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones; each piece was delivered with a dose of irreverence while still linked to their deeper roots. Before jumping into “Houses of the Holy,” Mr. Plant said, “Hold on to your trousers!” His colleague Ms. Griffin sang the blues standard “Nobody’s Fault but Mine,” which Zeppelin co-opted some 50 years after Blind Willie Johnson recorded it. Mr. Plant also ended the set with “Gallows Pole,” which featured Mr. Scott on banjo, and began the encore with “Thank You.” “I knew you were country fans,” he said, acknowledging how the band reworked the tune. Then they launched into “Rock and Roll.”
On new, unfamiliar material, Mr. Plant showed his ability to control the stage when, late in the show, the band did a folky reading of Townes Van Zandt’s “Harm’s Swift Way” with Mr. Scott on acoustic guitar and Mr. Miller adding twangy bass notes on electric guitar. Mr. Plant conceded it was “a little premature” to showcase songs two months before the band’s versions would be available, but the audience welcomed the performances. He followed “Down to the Sea”—from his ‘93 solo album, “Fate of Nations”—with Los Lobos’s “Angel Dance,” which can be heard on Band of Joy’s new disc. Both songs were greeted with equal fervor.
Mr. Plant is beefier now, and he’s set aside the fey gestures he deployed in his Zeppelin days. But he’s still a star: The day before opening night was Robert Plant Day here and the Memphis Commercial Appeal ran his photo on its front page the morning after. The city’s importance to American music holds meaning for him; during the show, he called Memphis “his first second home.”
In the Band of Joy, he’s the centerpiece, but not the only focus. Several times during the program, he withdrew to a backing role, allowing his colleagues to share the spotlight together. In a beautiful reading of “All the King’s Horses,” he allowed them to show their versatility: Mr. Giovino turned from the drums to play accordion while Mr. Scott switched to pedal steel. Mr. Plant also exploited the band’s vocal capabilities, using three, and sometimes four, voices to form a wall of harmony around him.
A large share of the credit for Band of Joy’s sound belongs to Mr. Miller, who is based in Nashville. Mr. Miller brought to the Plant-Krauss band his easy way with Americana, and he’s done the same with this unit. His rubbery guitar lines centered “House of Cards,” and when the group tackled the Plant-Page composition, “Please Read the Letter,” Mr. Miller unleashed a garage-rock sound, then withdrew, to be followed by Mr. Scott’s gentle riffs on folk guitar. When the band played other songs from the Plant-Krauss collaboration, Mr. Miller gave them a new underpinning. Accordingly, “Rich Woman” and “Gone Gone Gone” shimmered with a new, different glow.
It’s a treat to watch Mr. Plant, who exudes a casual, though not quite self-effacing, confidence. No one in the theater seemed to enjoy himself more than he did. He played a tiny washboard on one tune, toying with it well after the song ended. During “Misty Mountain Hop,” the evening’s first Zeppelin tune, he moved his microphone next to Ms. Griffin’s and they sang in unison, a sly smile crossing his face as the audience cheered with glee.
When the brief U.S. tour ends on July 31, Mr. Plant and Band of Joy will head to the U.K. for several shows in anticipation of the album’s release. Another U.S. tour will kick off in early 2011. There’s no reason to believe Mr. Plant won’t be smiling then, too, as the new Band of Joy continues to explore the link between the Plant catalogue and its American roots.
By JIM FUSILLI
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704913304575371290965276322.
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