Robert Plant takes a road trip through all sorts of roots music on “Band of Joy” (**** out of four stars, out Sept. 14), his first album since “Raising Sand,” the Grammy Award-winning collaboration with bluegrass queen Alison Krauss.
The Led Zeppelin front man went into the studio with Krauss to begin recording a follow-up to “Raising Sand,” but the magical vibe the two created the first time out simply wasn’t there. Plant’s Plan B was to work with Americana stars Buddy Miller and Patty Griffin instead, and the results are spectacular. Miller’s dexterous guitar playing melds folk, soul, rock and country in equal measures, and Griffin’s impassioned vocals work extremely well with Plant’s. Another key player on “Band of Joy” is multi-instrumentalist Darrell Scott, who sweetens everything whether he’s on mandolin, banjo, accordion, pedal steel guitar or something else.
The song selection on this album is wide-ranging, including tracks written by roots rockers Los Lobos (“Angel Dance”), Midwest indie-duo Low (“Slave Rider,” “Monkey”), Texas R&B singer Barbara Lynn (“You Can’t Buy My Love”) and singer-songwriters Richard Thompson (“House of Cards”) and Townes Van Zandt (“Harm’s Swift Way”). None of it comes off like some kind of pedantic musical history lesson. The tunes flow naturally from a guy who knows there’s a whole lot more to sing than “Whole Lotta Love.”
Detroit Free Press
- MARTIN BANDYKE
http://www.freep.com/article/20100829/ENT04/8290338/1035/Ent/Robert-Plant-plumbs-roots-music-again
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