Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
Raising Sand
(Rounder, 2007)

In the wider circles of rock ‘n’ roll, the fall of 2007 was preoccupied with an event of global proportions, an event that had the media and marketing machines of the music industry talking about it way more and way longer than necessary: The Led Zeppelin reunion. Remember? Maybe right now, you read that in disbelief, thinking that it barely raised a blip on your own music radar, but really think back and I think you’ll agree with me. Music movers and shakers couldn’t seem to calm their collective excitement about what was going to go down, and it was mostly on the premise that the one-off reunion show set for December 10, 2007 was a mere inkling of what was yet to come, that being a full-scale tour. This, of course, never happened. The reunion show was pretty cool, I guess, if you were connected or rich enough to actually get there. But basically the concert came and went and now, in retrospect, two years later, it seems clear that it didn’t have much lasting significance, or relevance, or well… much of an impact at all.

In the wake of all that frenzy, there was actually news on the Zeppelin front worthy of our time and subsequent allegiance, and that was the release of the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss album, Raising Sand.

This album ended up going platinum and winning Album of the Year at the 2009 Grammy Awards, so it certainly received its critical and commercial due, but for me—and I bet for many who were sick of all the Zeppelin talk and speculation taking over our RSS feeds—I didn’t even listen to it back when it was actually released by Rounder in ’07. Raising Sand hit the market in the midst of the media storm. It was, and is, a collection of music that’s devoid of any hype or expectation, quite unlike that parallel project that brewed just beyond. Two years later, Raising Sand remains refreshingly free and disaffected—a surprise collaboration that was candidly captured and executed. And that innate harmony shines through on the recording.

Raising Sand is essentially a covers album. Producer T-Bone Burnett threaded the record together and gave it a stripped-down shell. Devoid of excessive studio polish or wizardry, Burnett injected warmth throughout by allowing the collection of songs to feed organically on its modest instrumentation and gorgeous vocal harmonies. Each song demands attention, as they revisit and celebrate the original author who penned it. The legend and lore of Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant is undermined by his folky versatility here, and it’s a testament to the truly angelic vocals of bluegrass nymph Alison Krauss. Who ever thought Plant’s signature spiky yowl could soften like this? Krauss could probably coax the devil out of hell with her rich, honeyed voice, and her perfect pitch effectively coerced Plant into melting right along with her.

The swaggering blues of the first track, “Rich Woman”, first recorded in 1955 by Li’l Millet and his Creoles, is a chilly opening to a record that steadily softens as its moves along. The following song is my favorite. “Killing the Blues” (written by Roly Salley) explores some of the duo’s most beautiful vocal harmonies. With softly thumping guitar chords and intermittent pedal steel, this song beckons sleepy afternoons under a weeping willow tree tossing cares to the wind, or a deserted, lonesome walk in a pattering rain shower headed nowhere in particular. They craft a mood for sure, but leave the song open enough for the listener to take it wherever he and she chooses.

Sam Phillips’ “Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us” is next, a sweet, haunting ode by Krauss accompanied by sparse instrumentation and a lackadaisical waltzing tempo. “Polly Come Home”, written by Gene Clark, is stiff and slow, but Plant sounds as gentle as we’ve ever heard him, his near-whispering vocals greeted by Krauss’ heavenly timbre, serving to lift the song to a place of loss and confusion as they incisively sing together, “I searched for you there, and now look for you from within / Polly come home again.”

“Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)”, an uptempo, countrified rocker by the Everly Brothers, swoops in to rescue the album from sinking too heavily into dreamy doldrums, and then “Through the Morning, Through the Night” (again by Gene Clark) takes the reins, steering us back to broken-hearted introspection. For a song that is already sad as hell, Plant and Krauss take it to a whole other level as they sing in harmony, “But to know that another man’s holding you tight / Hurts me little darling / Through the morning, through the night.”

“Please Read the Letter” was originally recorded by Plant and Jimmy Page for their ’98 album, Walking into Clarksdale, but this duo has, of course, turned it into yet another lonesome love song, albeit this one is a bit more hopeful and circuitous. Tom Waits and his wife/collaborator Kathleen Brennan wrote “Trampled Rose” (for 2004’s Real Gone album) and the distance between Waits and Krauss is not as far as you may think. Waits sings with rust on his lips and a bite in his growl, while Krauss’ delivery is entirely silky soft, but both of them capture the folky breadth of the song and carry with it their own desolation and desperation.

With “Fortune Teller” by Allen Toussaint (who wrote it under the pseudonym Naomi Neville back in 1962) comes Plant’s turn to take over vocal duties, his famous voice metered; he keeps his range within the limitations of the song. Krauss and Plant take on “Stick with Me Baby” (written by Mel Tillis) together, their harmonies hushed and humble, before Plant takes respectful liberties around Townes Van Zandt’s gritty “Nothin’” as saturated strings and a dark, fuzzy guitar unfurl and wind around his singing. “Let Your Loss Be Your Lesson” (by Little Milton) is an Allman Brothers-like country-rocker with a danceable, jangly rhythm, coming up for air just before the album closes out with the Doc Watson tune, “Your Long Journey.” With autoharp leading the way, this triumphant hymn is exactly the right way to end Raising Sand, tenderly accepting the departure at hand as Plant and Krauss together sing, “My heart breaks as you take your long journey.”

Word on the street is that Krauss and Plant are set to do another album together. This time, I’ll be welcoming it, even in the midst of any other media mayhem that might be happening on the outside.

Listen: “Killing the Blues” [at youtube.com]