Robert Plant

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Image:Plant1975.jpg Robert Anthony Plant (born 20 August 1948, West Bromwich, Staffordshire, England) is a British rock singer famous for being the frontman of one of the most influential rock bands of all time — Led Zeppelin. He is known for his powerful style with a wide vocal range.

Led Zeppelin

Plant started his career singing in a variety of bands including Band of Joy. His early efforts met with no commercial success, but word quickly spread about the "young guy with the powerful voice". Guitarist Jimmy Page was in search of a lead singer for his new band and met Plant after being turned down by his first choice, Terry Reid, who referred him to a show at a nightclub where Plant was singing in a band which included drummer John Bonham. Plant and Page immediately hit it off with a shared musical passion and after Plant joined the band, they began their powerful writing collaboration with reworkings of earlier blues songs. Plant brought along friend John Bonham, and along with Jimmy Page friend John Paul Jones, Led Zeppelin was formed in 1968. Their self-titled debut album hit the charts in 1969 and is widely credited as a catalyst for the heavy metal genre.

Plant was influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien, which inspired some lyrics on early Led Zeppelin albums, most notably the hit "Ramble On" from the 1969 album, Led Zeppelin II. (He also named his dog "Strider.") The passion for diverse musical experiences drove Plant and Page to explore the African continent, specifically Morocco, which most evidently culminated in the classic track, "Kashmir." They both revisited these influences during their reunion album No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded in 1994. In his solo career, Plant again tapped from these influences many times, most notably in the 2002 album, Dreamland.

The band's greatest success came with the track, "Stairway to Heaven", an epic fantasy piece that draws influence from folk, blues, Celtic traditional music and hard rock among other genres. While never released as a single, the song has topped charts as the greatest song of all time on various polls around the world. Even though most of the lyrics of the song were written on the spot and have been spread through bootlegs, various groups have claimed that the song contained satanic messages that can be heard when it is played backwards.

Plant enjoyed great success with the band throughout the 1970s, and at one point during the height of his hubris said to a reporter "I am the Golden God!" This hubris was cut short when Plant and wife Maureen were seriously injured in a car crash in Rhodes, Greece on August 4, 1975. This halted production of Led Zeppelin's seventh album Presence for a few months while he recovered, and forced the band to cancel the remaining tour dates for the year. Things also took a turn for the worse in 1977, when his oldest son Karac died of a stomach infection. Karac's death later inspired him to write the song "All My Love" in tribute, featured on Led Zeppelin's final studio LP, 1979's In Through the Out Door. These tragic incidents seemed to foster break-up rumors and rumors that the band was involved with black magic and the occult.

Solo career

After the band's breakup following the sudden death of drummer John Bonham in 1980, Plant pursued a successful solo career. Popular tracks from this period include "Big Log," "Tall Cool One," and "I Believe." In 1984, Plant formed a short-lived all-star group with Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Phil Collins called The Honeydrippers, who had a Top Ten hit with a remake of the Phil Phillips' tune, "Sea of Love".

Plant has also occasionally performed with both surviving members of Led Zeppelin: in 1985 for Live Aid (with Phil Collins on drums), 1988 for Atlantic Records 40th anniversary, and in 1995 when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the last two with Bonham's son Jason filling in on drums. Additionally, Plant, Jones, and Page attended - and later performed at - Jason's wedding in 1990.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, Plant co-wrote three solo albums with keyboardist/songwriter Phil Johnstone. "Now and Zen" (1988), "Manic Nirvana" (1990) and "Fate of Nations" (1993) all graced the Plant/Johnstone partnership. It was Johnstone who talked Plant into playing Zeppelin songs in his live shows, something Plant had resisted not wanting to be forever known as "the former Led Zeppelin vocalist." Plant also collaborated with Jimmy Page on the 1998 album, Walking Into Clarksdale, which features all original material from the pair, a first since the 1980 break-up of Led Zeppelin.

In 2002, Plant formed a new back-up group, Strange Sensation, for a new album, Dreamland. Their second album, Mighty Rearranger, was released in 2005. Unlike Dreamland, a lush collection of relatively obscure blues remakes, Mighty Rearranger contains new, original songs. Both have received some of the most favorable reviews of Plant's solo career.

Today, in addition to his own post-Zeppelin work, Plant continues his occasional collaborations with his former bandmate Jimmy Page. Plant still actively tours, most recently in Europe, Fall 2005 with His Strange Sensation. His sets typically include recent solo material and plenty of Led Zeppelin favorites, often with new arrangements.

Solo discography

• Pictures at Eleven (1982)
• The Principle of Moments (1983)
• The Honeydrippers: Volume One (1984), with Jimmy Page
• Shaken 'n' Stirred (1985)
• Now and Zen (1988)
• Manic Nirvana (1990)
• Fate of Nations (1993)
• The Wayne's World 2 Soundtrack (1993), only one song
• No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded (1994), as Page and Plant
• Walking into Clarksdale (1998), as Page and Plant
• Dreamland (2002)
• Sixty Six to Timbuktu (2003) Best Of
• Mighty Rearranger (2005), with Strange Sensation

External links

• Official Robert Plant Homepage
• Interview with Robert Plant
• Robert Plant's Altsounds.com Profile
• Robert Plant's live concert

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