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Robert Plant

In 1966, Robert Plant left home, left college, left work, and turned professional. By 1967 he had cut 6 sides for CBS, formed the Band of Joy with John Bonham, and created two crucial working partnerships. The first such partnership was with Terry Reid – the two became friends playing on the progressive music circuit of the mid-60s; the second was with bandleader Alexis Korner, with whom Plant worked as harmonica player and co-vocalist in various Korner ventures, many of which featured pianist Steve Miller and were featured as the opening act for the band Free. In early ‘68, Plant's psychedelic dream ran out of steam. Bonham left the Band of Joy to tour with Tim Rose, while Plant continued to work with Korner.

Plant's friend Terry Reid recommended Plant to Jimmy Page for a revised Yardbirds line-up, declining the gig himself to pursue what looked to be a promising solo career. Plant in turn recommended Bonham, and with Page's fellow session doyen John Paul Jones on bass, what began life as “The New Yardbirds” became the creative force known as Led Zeppelin.

Bonham's untimely death in 1980 brought the Led Zeppelin era to a close. Since then, Plant has recorded many solo projects and collaborated with a host of colorful accomplices. He and Jimmy Page renewed their long-time partnership in '95 for four years in the No Quarter project – a melange of North African, Egyptian, and folk- roots sounds.

Plant's wide-ranging appetite for non-Western musics – including the music of Morocco, the Atlas region, and beyond – met with his lifelong fascination with American West Coast psychedelic rock to form a new collision of styles and colors known as Strange Sensation. Their first album, Dreamland, received great critical acclaim and two Grammy® nominations in January 2003.

More recently, Plant has recorded with Afro Celt Sound System and, along with Skin and Justin Adams, traveled to South Sahara, North of Timbuktu in Mali to participate in the 2nd Festival of the Desert, a gathering of African Saharan and assorted soul musicians which included Oumou Sangare, Ali Farka Toure, Tinariwen, and Tidawt. This project ultimately became a CD compilation on the Harmonia Mundi label.

2003 saw the release of the definitive Plant retrospective, Sixty Six to Timbuktu, which included a selection of Plant's solo work, from his first recording date to his appearance in Mali.

In October of 2004, Plant revived his long-dormant Es Paranza label for its first release in many years. May of 2005 saw the release of Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation's album Mighty Rearranger, which featured twelve new original songs. A major year-long tour followed. At the close of 2005, the critically acclaimed Mighty Rearranger received two Grammy® nominations in vocal categories.

The following year saw Robert and the band embark on a new adventure with a string of dates across Europe and beyond. A stopover in Sweden in late May saw Robert, along with the other members of Led Zeppelin, receive the prestigious Polar Music Prize. His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden presented the award to Led Zeppelin in the presence of other dignitaries with the following words:

“The 2006 Polar Music Prize is awarded to the British Group Led Zeppelin, one of the great pioneers of rock. Their playful and experimental music combined with highly eclectic elements has two essential themes: mysticism and primal energy. These are features that have come to define the genre ‘hard rock.'”

In October of 2006 Rounder/Zoë Vision released Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation DVD, a ten-camera High Definition shoot for USA Soundstage productions. This was the first commercial DVD in Robert's career. This continued the critical recognition of the current work of Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation.

2006 closed with the worldwide release of Nine Lives (Rhino), a beautifully designed boxed set containing all of Plant's solo work since '81–accompanied by outtakes, live cuts, and a DVD with contributions from Tori Amos, Phil Collins, Roger Daltrey, Bobby Gillespie, and Lenny Kravitz, among others.

2007 finds Robert working on album number three with Strange Sensation, leaning again towards the music of the muse – exotic, explosive, and detailed. Along the way he performed with Tinariwen, the Malian Tuareg cooperative who received huge critical acclaim for the Justin Adams produced CD Aman Iman, singing and playing spooked tenor ukelele at the Bataclan Theatre in Paris in April. A summer tour of the eastern Mediterranean with Strange Sensation will run from June through August.

Raising Sand, a new project and partnership with 20-time Grammy® Award winning artist Alison Krauss, will be released in October 2007 on Rounder Records. Their first recorded collaboration, Raising Sand proves a wonder on two counts: first that it happened at all, and, more importantly, that it is as successful and illuminating as it is.

Under the stewardship of producer T-Bone Burnett, Raising Sand spans the intersections of early urban blues, spacious West Texas country, and the unrealized potential of the folk-rock revolution. It is an album that uncovers popular music's elemental roots while sounding effortlessly timeless – It's nearly impossible to tell which songs are a hundred years old or which are contemporary. Krauss and Plant share a maverick spirit that makes Raising Sand sound like one continuous thought -- a conversation between two major music talents that goes on for an entire album.

Alison Krauss

For Alison Krauss, musical collaboration has been a way of life. Her own story has been nothing short of amazing: signed to Rounder Records as a precocious 13-year-old fiddler from Champaign, Illinois, she has, over two decades with the label, become the most recognized face in contemporary bluegrass, a critically acclaimed artist who has brought modern sophistication to the genre while respecting its traditions. She has also managed to sell upwards of 8 million records and garner 20 Grammy® Awards, the most for any female artist in Grammy® history. Yet Krauss has consistently worked to honor her influences, like contemporary bluegrass pioneer Tony Rice, to promote discoveries like the Cox Family, and to offer her skills as producer, most recently to country star Alan Jackson.

Krauss' latest musical collaboration, Raising Sand, is an astonishing album recorded in tandem with rock vocalist and songwriter Robert Plant. Scheduled for release on Rounder on October 23, 2007, Raising Sand is their first recorded endeavor, and will prove revelatory to fans and the media on two counts: first that it happened at all, and, more importantly, that it is as successful and illuminating as it is.

Under the careful sonic stewardship of producer T Bone Burnett, Raising Sand is pitched three steps beyond some cosmic collision of early urban blues, spacious West Texas country, and the unrealized potential of the folk-rock revolution. Shockingly evocative, it is an album that uncovers popular music's elemental roots while sounding effortlessly, breathtakingly modern. Despite hailing from distinctly different backgrounds, Plant and Krauss share a maverick spirit and willingness to extend the boundaries of their respective genres. Raising Sand finds Plant and Krauss functioning as sympathetic equals: creating a powerful new sound from both their common musical ground and their unrivaled sense of empathy.

Krauss is apparently not one for taking time off. While Union Station took a hiatus after the 18-month tour to support the 2004 Alison Krauss and Union Station release Lonely Runs Both Ways, Krauss took full advantage of the down time to explore new musical horizons. She produced Alan Jackson's 2006 release, Like Red on a Rose, which the Chicago Sun-Times declared “a masterpiece,” taking the best-selling artist out of his familiar surroundings to create a moody, intimate song cycle that has been favorably compared to Frank Sinatra's In the Wee Small Hours. The New York Times described it as “a deeply country record that sounds nothing like a country record.” She also produced and recorded five new tracks with long time engineer Gary Paczosa to complete her twelfth release, A Hundred Miles or More: A Collection, gathering on one elegantly understated disc previously released collaborations with such artists and friends as Brad Paisley, John Waite, James Taylor, Natalie MacMaster, and The Chieftains, along with songs she cut for well-known movie soundtracks and other special projects. With the new tracks (among them the current country single “Simple Love”) she created something far more than just a compilation. Across 16 songs, A Hundred Miles or More gracefully balances the new with the familiar to form a vivid portrait of this adventurous artist.

In the same “year off”, she began the then-undefined project with Plant and Burnett, recording initially in Nashville, then moving to Los Angeles to complete the project. While finishing touches were being done on Raising Sand, Krauss and her equally celebrated band Union Station were busy fulfilling one of their long-time dreams—a special tour with their friend, mentor and inspiration Tony Rice, performing material from his storied career. Alison and Union Station moved directly from the dates with Tony Rice to a national summer tour in support of A Hundred Miles or More. Billed as “An Evening with Alison Krauss and Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas,” it showcases material from the new disc, along with fan favorites.

Krauss reached that extraordinary 20 Grammy® milestone when her last album with Union Station, Lonely Runs Both Ways, was named 2005's Best Country Album. It wasn't the only award she and her band-mates took home from the 48th Annual Grammys®: “Unionhouse Branch” garnered Best Country Instrumental Performance and “Restless” received the Best Country Performance by a Duo/Group Award. She has also received several Country Music Association Awards, including Musical Event of the Year for “Whiskey Lullaby” with Brad Paisley, originally released on Paisley's Mud on the Tires and reprised on A Hundred Miles or More. The International Bluegrass Music Association Awards have honored her on several occasions, most recently for Livin', Lovin', Losin' – Songs of the Louvin Brothers, which features her duet with James Taylor, “How's the World Treating You,” also included on the new album. The two tracks she cut for the Cold Mountain soundtrack, “The Scarlet Tide” and “You Will Be My Ain True Love” (with Sting on harmony vocals) were nominated for Oscars in 2004, garnering performances on the 75th Academy Awards telecast. Lonely Runs Both Ways, which was hailed by both audiences and critics, has been certified Gold by the RIAA, and Krauss and Union Station's 2002 double-disc Live CD and Live DVD were certified Platinum.

More impressive, however, than any of these accolades has been Krauss's unwavering commitment to being an independent-label artist who has succeeded far beyond the scope of many major-label artists. She has been able to circulate freely within pop, mainstream country, and roots music circles, creating impeccably produced records that appeal to an equally wide-ranging and inquisitive audience. Krauss has continued doing things the old-fashioned way: following her heart and whatever path the music takes her down.

“I'm so glad we didn't do anything else,” Krauss told USA Today in regard to her and Union Station's choice to make Rounder their home for so many years, “because I'm so happy with how it's gone.”
“I never had any big dreams about doing something on a huge scale,” Krauss reflects. “But I have dreamt about liking my records. That's the kind of stuff I dreamt about.” She may have dreamt small, but as an artist, she's succeeded very, very big. In her case, modesty has proven to be the best policy.

Now, the only question is where her next musical journey might take us.

T Bone Burnett

T Bone Burnett is an American original. One of music's most multi-faceted and successful artists, his multitude of musical identities include: acclaimed performer and songwriter; Grammy®-winning producer (the O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Walk The Line soundtracks; the Tony Bennett and k.d. lang album, A Wonderful World); Oscar-nominated songwriter (“The Scarlet Tide” from Cold Mountain); indie record label founder (DMZ Records); soundtrack composer/Executive Music Producer (Walk The Line, The Big Lebowski); and versatile studio wizard (Elvis Costello, Roy Orbison, Tony Bennett, k.d. lang, Alison Krauss, Counting Crows, the Wallflowers, Sam Phillips, Gillian Welch, and Ralph Stanley).

Most recently, Burnett shepherded into existence Raising Sand, a collaborative effort from Alison Krauss and Robert Plant to be released on October 23, 2007. Burnett's unerring sonic vision guided this project from an unlikely meeting of uniquely individual icons to a triumphant, stunningly coherent artistic statement. As producer, bandleader, and repertoire specialist, Burnett crafted settings that illuminated Plant and Krauss's common musical ground while allowing each to shine in new and surprising ways. Plant has never before sung with such pure, understated soul, while Krauss – in addition to providing crystalline harmonies – cuts loose as never before. From ramshackle blues to hillbilly artsong, Raising Sand is one of the most beguiling albums in any of the three principals' amazing legacies, and one of the most astonishing and affecting albums of 2007.

In 2006, T Bone emerged from a self-imposed 14-year hiatus as a recording artist to release two highly-anticipated and critically-acclaimed collections of music simultaneously: The True False Identity, his first album of new original songs since 1992, and Twenty Twenty - The Essential T Bone Burnett, a 40-song retrospective spanning his entire career of music-making. T Bone said of his extended break, “After the last record (1992's The Criminal Under My Own Hat), I felt I could write some new songs and go around the track again, but I didn't feel that I would get anywhere. The road had become too difficult. Music had come completely apart for me. But more importantly, I didn't have anything I wanted to say. It all seemed pointless, so I decided to explore some of the other ideas that were coming my way. I needed freedom. I needed time to find another way into playing music again.”

It is no coincidence that T Bone released a retrospective and a new album on the same day. In his revelatory liner notes for Twenty Twenty, he wrote, “This is the way I wanted to close the book on these songs from a dead man, and open the book on the new life I am beginning after forty years of wandering in the desert.” An enigmatic sentiment coming from a man whose solo work has always been filled with droll humor, sardonic wordplay and keen cultural observations. But, for T Bone Burnett, the past is prologue and The True False Identity fulfilled an artistic vision that's been forming in the back of his brain for decades.

Born Joseph Henry Burnett in St. Louis, Missouri, T Bone grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, where he first made records in 1965, producing Texas blues, country, and rock & roll bands and, occasionally, himself. In the early 1970s, he relocated to Los Angeles, where he still lives and works as a producer and recording artist. In 1975, he toured with Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Review tour before forming his own group, the Alpha Band, with other musicians from the tour.

Burnett returned to recording solo in the late 1970s and has gone on to record numerous critically acclaimed albums – including 1992's Grammy® nominated Criminal Under My Own Hat – under his own name. He has written music for two Sam Shepard plays – “Tooth of Crime (Second Dance)” and “The Late Henry Moss” – and composed music for a production of Bertolt Brecht's “Mother Courage and Her Children” by Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

A prolific and versatile producer, T Bone Burnett has helmed highly successful recordings for Elvis Costello, Roy Orbison, Tony Bennett, k.d. lang, Alison Krauss, Counting Crows, the Wallflowers, Sam Phillips, Gillian Welch, and Ralph Stanley among numerous others. Burnett was musical director for the concert film, Roy Orbison and Friends: Black and White Night, which featured Orbison and an all-star band of Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Bonnie Raitt, Burnett and many others.

In 2001, he served as Composer and Music Producer for the Coen Brothers' film “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” scoring the film and producing a soundtrack of “old-timey” American music performed by musicians relatively unknown to the public at large. That soundtrack album became nothing less than a cultural phenomenon, selling nearly 9 million copies and dominating the Billboard album chart for more than a year. Burnett and the Coen Brothers joined forces again in 2002 to form DMZ Records, a joint venture with Columbia Records, and produced the new label's inaugural releases: a new album by the legendary bluegrass musician Ralph Stanley and the Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood soundtrack. DMZ has since released several critically-acclaimed soundtrack albums, produced or executive-produced by Burnett, including Cold Mountain (2003), A Mighty Wind (2003), Crossing Jordan (2003), and The Ladykillers (2004). One of his songs for Cold Mountain, “The Scarlet Tide,” co-written with Elvis Costello and sung by Alison Krauss, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song and won the BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music.

In 2005, T Bone served as Executive Music Producer for the highly-acclaimed Johnny Cash biopic, Walk The Line, produced the film's RIAA gold-certified soundtrack album, and composed its score. Burnett's work on that film earned him another Grammy® (his sixth) for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album, as well as a BAFTA nomination.

In addition to Robert Plant and Alison Krauss's Raising Sand, Burnett's recent projects include production of Cassandra Wilson's Thunderbird album and the sophomore album from Seattle-based singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile. He has just completed work as Executive Music Producer for the Julie Taymor-directed film,Across The Universe – a fictional love story set in the 1960s and told through the songs of The Beatles that defined that time. He is also producing a forthcoming album from blues legend B.B. King.