NEW YORK: The first time they collaborated, it was such a surprise smash that the only question was whether Robert Plant and Alison Krauss would sing together again. The answer is out this week.
Plant and Krauss jokingly call them Sonny and are back with a new album of Cher covers, 14 years after their surprise hit with critics and fans, Rising Sand.
It’s great to do it again and find new life for it, says Krauss, on the phone with Plant from Sound Emporium Studios in Nashville, Tennessee.
Friday’s new album from Rounder Records, Rise the Roof, follows an earlier blueprint, which featured several similar musicians and T Bone Burnett producer Smart. The recording was completed only a few weeks before the pandemic hit.
So much time elapsed between recording sessions that Plant admits he was apprehensive that if the team did not get the right material quickly, they would not regain their special alchemy.
On the new album, Plant and Krauss features deep cuts by Merle Haggard, Alan Toussaint, The Everly Brothers, Anne Briggs, Geishi Wiley, Ola Belle Reed and Burt Jansch. A plant-burnt is also original, high and lonely.
A great song has many lifespans, says Plant and Cross agree. You want them to have a life of their own and you have to keep a very loose grip on those thoughts so that they become themselves, she says.
The pairing of former Led Zeppelin singer Plant with bluegrass violinist and vocalist Krauss for the first time proved to be a surprise hit with critics and fans alike. Rising Sand debuted at number 2 on the Billboard 200, went platinum and earned six Grammy Awards in 2009, upsetting rapper Lil Wayne and British rock band Coldplay for the top honors.
The main surprise was, Wow, can these guys actually work together? It was against the odds, Plant says. It was the sharing of something, the sharing of songs that people didn’t know anything about. This is one of the big journeys of my life.
It was Quattro (World Drifts In), a song by American band Calexico, that finally brought the new recording sessions to life. Plant says that song really attracted us to another way of doing things, a different kind of attitude, by looking at the voices together. As long as we got the right keys, we were doing great.
As he worked on the songs, Burnett, who Plants laughedly called the Archbishop of Cool, insisted that he keep the sparks of Tek first and not go back to clean them, which was a special tribute to Cross. Was tough, a bit of a perfectionist. Plant says lower accuracy is often better, because of its meaty content.
A highlight is Betty Harris’ retelling of the soulful, fast-paced “Trouble with My Lover”, penned by Toussaint. Plant begs Cross to sing it and, in his hands, it becomes moody, sad and sensual. But it was something reassuring.
I was scared to death, she says. I was scared to do that song, but I think it feels new now. I had to hide under the chair for some time.
Other songs include Village Last Kind Words Blues and Can’t Let Go, written by Randy Weeks and first recorded by Lucinda Williams. Williams herself sings backup on the cover of Brenda Burns’ Somebody Was Watching Over Me.
Plant says there’s nothing quite like sharing something musical you love and getting someone to do it. This is stuff that happened last time in the song process and happened this time. It’s one of the best parts of working with people who have completely different backgrounds, you get into great music that you would never have known otherwise.
Like Finding My Love by Robert Moore, soulful in the original but slower and more needy when Plant and Cross deal with it. Plant has long loved the song and has been waiting to do it justice: I’ve never found anyone who has taken any interest in my entire time as a singer who really like it. Instead of being retro-pasted, it could stand on its own. ,
Despite the years after the two of them worked together again, Plant says that when they reunited they picked up where they left off. They will tour together in 2022.
“We had a great respect for each other. But at the same time, we also know that we’re quite the comical people, which is one hell of a blessing, because it could be the wrong combination otherwise, says Plant.
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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
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