Robert Plant: By Myself


Robert Plant: By Myself

Similar Content

Browse content similar to Robert Plant: By Myself. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!

Transcript


LineFromTo

# Hey, mamma, say the way you move gonna make you sweat

0:00:020:00:03

# Gonna make you groove... #

0:00:030:00:05

As frontman for the mighty Led Zeppelin,

0:00:100:00:12

Robert Plant was the voice of rock for a generation of men and women.

0:00:120:00:15

Fusing raw sexual power and mystical longing with his powerhouse vocals,

0:00:150:00:21

long blonde main and strutting stage presence.

0:00:210:00:24

# Oh, yeah, oh, yeah... #

0:00:240:00:26

But what do you do next when the world's greatest rock band

0:00:260:00:30

crashes and burns, how do you pick yourself up and move on, alone?

0:00:300:00:34

CHEERING

0:00:380:00:40

For the last 30 years, Robert Plant has been forging a solo career,

0:00:440:00:48

sometimes struggling with the baggage of rock superstardom,

0:00:480:00:51

revealing more selves in a number of unexpected collaborations.

0:00:510:00:55

He has followed his muse wherever it has taken him.

0:00:550:00:58

From the deserts of Africa to the hills of Tennessee.

0:00:580:01:03

This is Robert Plant's story, in his own words.

0:01:030:01:07

The cards fell very favourably for me. I went to a grammar school, which

0:01:310:01:36

was part of Stourbridge town, which had a really creative and flamboyant art college.

0:01:360:01:42

People actually got scholarships to come from around Europe to study and create.

0:01:440:01:50

So there was a kind of great vibration in what would normally be

0:01:500:01:54

a little old town on the edge of the Black Country.

0:01:540:01:57

Folk clubs sprung up and jazz clubs. I was able to hang around on the edge of all these little societies.

0:02:030:02:08

So I could hear John Coltrane or Woody Guthrie or Dixieland jazz, I could hear

0:02:080:02:16

unaccompanied singing of beautiful Scottish Airs and all this

0:02:160:02:20

while the foundries of the Black Country beat their great rhythm.

0:02:200:02:27

As most towns in the early '60s had a town hall or similar,

0:02:330:02:38

so through the town came The Pretty Things.

0:02:380:02:44

The Walker Brothers.

0:02:440:02:46

The Merseybeats rolled into Stourbridge in a

0:02:460:02:49

blue and white American station wagon filled up with equipment.

0:02:490:02:54

These renegade guys, who ran off with all our teen queens.

0:02:540:02:59

There would be the boys fighting in Dudley to the rhythm of Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent.

0:03:040:03:09

Bohemian meetings on the top of the hills, with people singing great Big Bill Broonzy pieces.

0:03:100:03:18

There would be so many different things going on.

0:03:180:03:20

Whatever's come my way as far as my own music dalliances,

0:03:210:03:27

has come from having a keen ear and really wanting to explore...

0:03:270:03:33

PHONE RINGS

0:03:330:03:35

Oh, that will be the wife.

0:03:350:03:36

Oh, I haven't got one, that's kind of neat.

0:03:360:03:40

# You are my sunshine

0:03:400:03:42

# My only sunshine

0:03:420:03:45

# You make me happy... #

0:03:460:03:47

Robert Plant didn't only listen to everything, he wanted to perform.

0:03:470:03:51

If American rock'n'roll inspired many young kids to pick up a guitar or learn to play the drums,

0:03:510:03:57

Plant was inspired by the strange power and sexual charge of its upfront vocal.

0:03:570:04:01

# My sunshine... #

0:04:010:04:04

When I first heard the rock'n'roll singers

0:04:040:04:06

there was a swagger and a lurch in the voice, which was other worldly to me.

0:04:060:04:12

# Kiss me, baby

0:04:120:04:13

# Wooh, woo-oh

0:04:130:04:16

# It feels good... #

0:04:160:04:18

I suppose I was quite interested in my stamp collection and Romano-British history.

0:04:180:04:25

I was a little grammar schoolboy, and I could hear this calling through the airwaves.

0:04:250:04:30

# One night with you... #

0:04:300:04:33

I could hear this voice transmuting into something completely different than the spoken word

0:04:330:04:39

and way different to Dickie Valentine and all the British crooners who were just about to get their P45s.

0:04:390:04:45

By 1962, the hippest audiences in Britain were enthralled to

0:04:480:04:52

American blues artists, some of whom had begun touring the UK.

0:04:520:04:56

They were the trailblazers of what would become, in the hands of young white kids, the British blues boom.

0:04:560:05:02

# Got my mojo working but it just don't work on you... #

0:05:040:05:09

The black music we listened to was sexy, alluring,

0:05:090:05:16

it had great driving beats and rhythms, which we couldn't even get near.

0:05:160:05:19

# I'm going down to Louisiana to

0:05:190:05:22

# Get me a mojo hand... #

0:05:220:05:24

You're there with every single breath of what the guy is doing.

0:05:280:05:33

I suppose, really, I wouldn't have been able to put that into words at the time. I was just mesmerised.

0:05:330:05:38

# I wanna

0:05:380:05:40

# Tell everybody in the

0:05:400:05:43

# Neighbourhood

0:05:450:05:47

# But I get n-n-n-nervous

0:05:470:05:51

# M-m-man

0:05:530:05:54

# Do I get nervous... #

0:05:540:05:57

If you go back to when I first started doing it, I was 14 and a half years old.

0:05:570:06:03

# N-n-n, nervous man... #

0:06:030:06:07

All I was doing was getting through the song and getting to the end.

0:06:070:06:13

And getting away with it - it was great!

0:06:130:06:17

Plant would later pay his dues at the school of British blues

0:06:190:06:22

that centred around musician and impresario Alexis Corner,

0:06:220:06:27

whose small basement club in Ealing became the mecca for every would-be blues performer in the UK.

0:06:270:06:32

He was a fantastic catalyst. He was almost the home of

0:06:320:06:38

all the dewy-eyed kids who wanted to play rhythm and blues.

0:06:380:06:43

CHEERING AND SCREAMING

0:06:430:06:45

Nurturing work with the Stones,

0:06:450:06:47

Jimmy Page and myself.

0:06:470:06:49

# I'm gonna tell you how it's gonna be

0:06:580:07:00

# You're gonna give your love to me... #

0:07:020:07:04

So many people came by and through that school of British blues.

0:07:040:07:09

There was something going on, but it was a hybrid.

0:07:090:07:11

# Feeling funny in my mind, Lord

0:07:120:07:14

# I believe I'm fixing to die... #

0:07:140:07:16

At that period in time the great change was coming.

0:07:160:07:20

# I don't mind dying

0:07:200:07:21

# But I hate to leave my children crying... #

0:07:210:07:24

You go from Gene Vincent and that precocious sexually-charged rock music,

0:07:240:07:30

into the whole social commentary that was developing.

0:07:300:07:36

# Look over yonder to that burial ground... #

0:07:360:07:41

The first two or three Dylan albums, that was a whole different way of telling a story.

0:07:410:07:47

By 1967, the stories and the storytellers were getting weirder

0:07:500:07:54

and weirder, American psychedelic music, which synthesized rock, folk, blues and jazz for the stoned

0:07:540:08:00

and socially conscious, showed Plant a world of possibilities.

0:08:000:08:05

We were always looking west for musical form.

0:08:090:08:12

The whole idea of a psychedelic movement in the UK was based on a drug experience to some degree,

0:08:220:08:29

but there was no foundation for it, there was no train of thought, and a process that actually

0:08:290:08:35

allowed the thing to grow out of the coffee bar folk scenes of Greenwich village and the Troubadour in LA.

0:08:350:08:42

We didn't really have that, so sadly, the British psychedelic movement was

0:08:470:08:52

almost trivial and some sort of novelty thing.

0:08:520:08:55

# Close my eyes and drift away... #

0:08:550:08:59

So after the various bands that had been in, I ended up with the Band Of Joy

0:09:100:09:16

and with John Bonham and heading into a blues-based zone,

0:09:160:09:21

but by that time incorporating the effects that Dylan had created in the American culture

0:09:210:09:27

on the west coast.

0:09:270:09:29

Band Of Joy combined blues and psychedelia, songs and extended musical workouts.

0:09:310:09:37

A little taste of flower power, but with an emphasis on the power.

0:09:370:09:41

# Something happening here

0:09:410:09:46

# What it is ain't exactly clear... #

0:09:460:09:52

Bonzo was totally and utterly devoted to getting it right.

0:09:520:09:56

Everything he listened to he could go beyond.

0:09:560:10:00

Not only could he recreate it but take it somewhere new.

0:10:000:10:03

# Stop, yeah, what's that sound

0:10:050:10:08

# Everybody look what's going down... #

0:10:080:10:11

He knew that he was a powerhouse among drummers.

0:10:110:10:15

# ..what's going down... #

0:10:150:10:17

So he was pretty hard to deal with, and so was I,

0:10:170:10:20

because I felt exactly the same about what I was doing.

0:10:200:10:24

Even though we were obnoxious to everybody else, we seemed to have great affinity for each other.

0:10:240:10:29

# Paranoia striking deep

0:10:290:10:32

# To your mind... #

0:10:320:10:34

There was a lot of edge to it. It meant neither of us could slacken off.

0:10:340:10:40

So the Band of Joy was quite an energy centre.

0:10:400:10:45

# Baby, baby, please come home, yeah... #

0:10:450:10:50

I hear it and its effects in the early stuff that we did with Jimmy and John Paul,

0:10:520:10:57

definitely because we pushed it and pushed it to try to make it so special,

0:10:570:11:02

that it was earth-shattering, and we did it.

0:11:020:11:05

We did it. I'm here on behalf of the two of us to say that at times we did it.

0:11:050:11:10

1967, the Band of Joy joined a British underground club circuit, now dominated by

0:11:150:11:22

blues rock, folk rock, jazz rock and progressive rock.

0:11:220:11:26

We were really rotating around an amazing club scene.

0:11:260:11:32

It was great. Because it was vibrant, it was really all you could

0:11:350:11:39

have ever wished for as a musician, to be playing to people who got it.

0:11:390:11:43

But they didn't get the Band Of Joy. Penniless, Bonham and Plant were forced, temporarily,

0:11:470:11:52

to go their separate ways.

0:11:520:11:55

# Come tomorrow

0:11:560:11:57

# Would I be bolder

0:11:570:11:58

# Than today... #

0:11:580:12:02

But news of Plant's vocal power reached the ears of Jimmy Page, guitarist for The Yardbirds,

0:12:060:12:11

with the departure of their vocalist Keith Relf and drummer Jim McCarty,

0:12:110:12:15

Page was looking to transform the band into something called The New Yardbirds,

0:12:150:12:18

but with the addition of Plant and later his drummer pal John Bonham, the band was rechristened.

0:12:180:12:25

Those guys were kicking it, but it had expired, so rebuild.

0:12:300:12:35

Rebuild and see what it turns into.

0:12:350:12:37

When something is as radically different as what it turned in to,

0:12:370:12:41

obviously it is a new day entirely.

0:12:430:12:46

And that old name is history.

0:12:460:12:48

# Baby

0:12:490:12:51

# How could you do it

0:12:510:12:54

# Baby

0:12:540:12:57

# How could you do it

0:12:570:12:59

# I don't know what it is I like about you

0:13:010:13:03

# But I like it a lot

0:13:030:13:05

# Oh, let me hold you

0:13:050:13:09

# Let me feel your loving

0:13:090:13:11

# Communication breakdown

0:13:120:13:15

# It's always the same

0:13:150:13:16

# Having a total breakdown

0:13:180:13:20

# Drive me insane

0:13:200:13:22

# Oh-h-h-h... #

0:13:220:13:25

We didn't really know the worth of what was coming round the corner.

0:13:250:13:30

Everybody involved in that project,

0:13:300:13:31

from Peter Grant through to everybody that was playing, and Jimmy and John Paul,

0:13:310:13:36

who actually financed it in its early stages, were all just seeing, what is this thing all about?

0:13:360:13:43

As you know a million times it's been said within five minutes we've got something,

0:13:430:13:50

which was quite unusual.

0:13:500:13:54

In a way almost

0:13:540:13:56

so

0:13:580:13:59

intense and

0:13:590:14:02

on that it was overwhelming really.

0:14:020:14:06

# See my baby coming down the track

0:14:140:14:16

# Is my baby coming back

0:14:180:14:19

# Some day she gets back to me

0:14:220:14:24

# We're gonna raise a family... #

0:14:240:14:28

Having John in the picture, my sort of

0:14:290:14:33

inflammable pal,

0:14:330:14:35

made it so much better and so much more realistic.

0:14:350:14:40

There was nothing phoney about it at all, it was just, boom.

0:14:400:14:43

It was coming from the era of virtuosity,

0:14:490:14:53

it was about being good, and the

0:14:530:14:56

chemistry and weave between greatness, to be knocked out.

0:14:560:15:01

# You had an abuse

0:15:040:15:06

# Telling all of your lies

0:15:060:15:08

# Sweet little baby, baby

0:15:090:15:11

# How you hypnotise... #

0:15:110:15:14

I have always felt slightly remote and slightly...

0:15:140:15:19

..yeah, not insular,

0:15:210:15:24

but my role in all that really was peppering the musical moments on the more elongated pieces of music.

0:15:240:15:30

I always think about it as being that little melody that runs through all middle of that great playing.

0:15:330:15:38

But first, hear this...

0:15:380:15:41

-It's cool, groovy, it's number one, the Led Zeppelin.

-The Led what?

0:15:500:15:55

The Led Zeppelin, but I'm afraid and you and other dads like you may have never heard of them,

0:15:550:15:59

but this British group has made musical history today.

0:15:590:16:03

Readers of the Melody Maker have voted them the top world group.

0:16:030:16:06

The significance is The Beatles held this for eight years.

0:16:060:16:09

The year is 1970, only two years after their formation,

0:16:130:16:18

Led Zeppelin have already become an international success story - the greatest rock band in the world.

0:16:180:16:25

# Shake for me, girl

0:16:250:16:27

# I wanna be your backdoor man... #

0:16:290:16:31

Globe-trotting tours, chart-topping albums and scandalous stories

0:16:310:16:34

of rock'n'roll excess, were already part of a growing

0:16:340:16:37

Zeppelin mythology, made all the more tantalising by their increasing avoidance of the media.

0:16:370:16:43

TV interviews were extremely rare.

0:16:430:16:46

Do you think as musicians you can last as long as eight years? Will you be inventive enough?

0:16:460:16:51

I remember when I first went to see The Beatles - we've mentioned them a few times -

0:16:510:16:57

it was to look at them.

0:16:570:16:59

You didn't bother what you were listening to. Today it is not what you are, it is what you are playing.

0:16:590:17:05

You must be quite rich now, what is it like having money?

0:17:050:17:09

To have money at last is just another figure in my mind of mass acceptance,

0:17:090:17:15

which is what we all work for.

0:17:150:17:17

Everybody, however much they like to deny the fact,

0:17:170:17:20

really wants in the end, to be accepted by

0:17:200:17:22

majority of people, for being either a talent or a commodity.

0:17:220:17:28

So invincible were Led Zeppelin that they became band apart in a world where hugeness and greatness,

0:17:280:17:36

record sales and artistic achievement become thoroughly confused.

0:17:360:17:39

CHEERING

0:17:390:17:44

There is a consensus of opinion that decides that greatness will survive.

0:17:450:17:50

There are huge, vast pockets of other music, which are equally spectacular,

0:17:500:17:57

but for marginally different reasons -

0:17:570:17:59

they never quite got that huge acceptance and mass hysteria.

0:17:590:18:06

CHEERING

0:18:060:18:10

So a miss is as good as a mile in way.

0:18:110:18:14

It's that great thing about Forever Changes, the Love album,

0:18:140:18:18

how did that never be successful?

0:18:180:18:23

And yet it continues forever to always be part of the soundtrack of millions of people's lives.

0:18:230:18:29

Funny old game that.

0:18:320:18:34

Zeppelin, and Robert Plant in particular, had cornered the market in raw rock'n'roll sexuality.

0:18:380:18:44

Something that now sits uneasily with man who, back in the day, epitomised the rock god.

0:18:440:18:50

The estimation of any group of people about any one person is always

0:18:510:18:59

generally a million miles from where it's really at.

0:18:590:19:02

So, therefore, if I have a surge in creativity and it sticks to the wall for a while,

0:19:060:19:12

which is what's been happening recently,

0:19:120:19:14

points of reference for the media are so cliched, it's frightening.

0:19:140:19:20

You cannot judge anybody's work by just going to the spikes and saying,

0:19:200:19:27

because my spikes are the bits that nobody really thinks about.

0:19:270:19:30

My spikes were getting off the plane in 1972 and driving into the Atlas Mountains with a tape machine,

0:19:300:19:38

exploring Berber singers in the fields, walking through farmers' markets

0:19:380:19:44

in the middle of nowhere with a rattle of drums in the corner.

0:19:440:19:47

RHYTHMIC DRUMBEAT PLAYS

0:19:470:19:51

Those were the moments that are so far away from rock god, but they were spectacular.

0:19:530:19:58

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

0:19:580:20:00

But with the unpredictable highs came unexpected lows.

0:20:000:20:05

In 1977 Robert Plant lost his oldest son, Karac,

0:20:050:20:09

to a virus at the age of five.

0:20:090:20:12

Three years later, drummer John Bonham also died, aged 32.

0:20:120:20:16

All of us individually had been thinking about what would happen next, no matter what.

0:20:160:20:22

Because the illusion had run its course.

0:20:220:20:28

I had already,

0:20:280:20:30

as part of my beautiful family, lost my boy.

0:20:300:20:34

And then you think, I really have to decide what to do.

0:20:350:20:40

I applied to become a teacher...

0:20:420:20:45

..in the Rudolf Steiner education system.

0:20:460:20:51

I was accepted to go to teacher training college, this was in 1978.

0:20:510:20:57

I was really quite keen to just walk,

0:20:570:21:00

because as much as it was spectacular, it also wasn't spectacular.

0:21:000:21:04

You know, you do change as the days go by, you have to get harder and tougher,

0:21:060:21:10

but you still have this soft underbelly.

0:21:100:21:14

John had lured me back in...

0:21:160:21:18

not lured, that's wrong, John had

0:21:180:21:21

been incredibly supportive to me.

0:21:210:21:25

So to lose John was

0:21:250:21:28

that was the end of any naivety.

0:21:280:21:32

It was very, very evident that my last connection was severed, really.

0:21:360:21:40

As far as

0:21:430:21:45

strong affairs of the heart and a confederacy and stuff, it was gone.

0:21:450:21:49

On the 4th December 1980, Led Zeppelin announced, with the death of their

0:21:510:21:55

drummer, John Bonham, the band would split.

0:21:550:21:58

We don't have to talk about it for too long, because it is such old ground.

0:22:010:22:05

It was something that you come away from going I could never be as good as that

0:22:050:22:10

in any other place, or any other moment than that, which just happened.

0:22:100:22:15

You just find some way of getting home.

0:22:170:22:21

Plant's long journey home began with a trip to Rockfield, a sales studio

0:22:290:22:32

on the Welsh borders, to record two albums in quick succession.

0:22:320:22:35

This was Robert Plant 1980s-style, suited, booted

0:22:350:22:40

and ever so slightly sheared, this was Robert Plant out on his own.

0:22:400:22:46

# Slipped through the window by the back door

0:22:480:22:51

# Caught short in transit with my love... #

0:22:520:22:55

If this is entertainment, if it was entertainment, then it was time to entertain, myself.

0:22:550:23:00

So I decided to make two records really quickly, and start to embrace new ideas and new people.

0:23:060:23:11

Really from that moment on I decided I would never let the grass

0:23:110:23:15

grow under my feet, that I was a man of the world, as a player

0:23:150:23:20

and as a player in every respect.

0:23:200:23:23

I really wanted to see what was out there.

0:23:230:23:25

Shit or bust, it was going to be exactly how I wanted it to be.

0:23:290:23:32

# Just playing hooky with my heart... #

0:23:320:23:35

Something Plant had to face, once he was back in the studio,

0:23:360:23:39

was the absence of his old partner in crime, John Bonham.

0:23:390:23:43

To have a drummer after working with John since I was 16, or whatever,

0:23:440:23:50

to turn around and see somebody else there is

0:23:500:23:54

a bit of a weird thing to be thinking about.

0:23:540:23:57

Phil Collins turned up.

0:23:570:24:00

He'd been such a huge fan of John's work, and he fired every session

0:24:040:24:11

and blasted the room with butane and energy.

0:24:110:24:15

He got on everybody's case if people were slack,

0:24:150:24:18

if they weren't quite on it, he would stand up and make points

0:24:180:24:20

with his drumstick and frowning that frown across the room,

0:24:200:24:25

which gave me great confidence.

0:24:250:24:29

I would still tiptoe in, I was 32 years old, my career had ended.

0:24:290:24:36

Anything that came after that was

0:24:360:24:39

my business entirely.

0:24:390:24:41

When we saw him next in 1982, Robert Plant was a solo artist.

0:24:450:24:50

Did it take a lot of courage on your part to make a solo album after 12 years?

0:24:500:24:55

I guess so, it was a little uncomfortable to begin with, after being with

0:24:550:25:00

Jimmy for so long and Jonesy and Bonzo,

0:25:000:25:03

it's a little weird to walk on as a guest.

0:25:030:25:07

You are so used to working in the confines of one set-up.

0:25:070:25:11

Is it fair to say officially now to these people and the nation, that

0:25:110:25:13

Led Zeppelin will not work together any more?

0:25:130:25:17

No.

0:25:170:25:18

It is not fair to say?

0:25:180:25:21

No, they won't work together again, it's gone.

0:25:210:25:24

# Have you heard the news... #

0:25:260:25:29

Plant returned to his teens and his love of American rock'n'roll vocalists

0:25:290:25:33

for a third solo album in 1984, recorded with his short lived all-star band The Honeydrippers.

0:25:330:25:40

It is like, "Now what's he done?

0:25:400:25:43

"Plant has done it again." It's like a Just William book, or Jennings and Derbyshire.

0:25:430:25:49

# Pretty soon they had done it all

0:25:500:25:52

# Those fellas got drunk and they had a ball... #

0:25:520:25:55

Ahmet Ertegun had signed Zeppelin to Atlantic and also happened to sign Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin,

0:25:550:26:03

The Coasters, The Drifters, Modern Jazz Quartet, John Coltrane, the Iron Butterfly,

0:26:030:26:10

Crosby Stole The Stash.

0:26:100:26:12

I used to go out with him and Phil Spector in New York around clubs,

0:26:120:26:17

we would end up in a corner, inebriated, singing outros of Gene Vincent songs

0:26:170:26:22

and touching on a Gene Pitney classic.

0:26:220:26:25

He used to say all you do is you have all this stuff in your head, all this phrasing and vocal stuff,

0:26:260:26:32

you should do some songs like that.

0:26:320:26:35

# He can go... #

0:26:390:26:41

The Honeydrippers thing arrived, I think I called it Volume One,

0:26:410:26:45

because the idea of there being a volume two was a hoot.

0:26:450:26:50

# Do you remember when we met

0:26:580:27:02

# That's day I knew you were mine

0:27:040:27:08

# I want to tell you

0:27:080:27:11

# How much I love you... #

0:27:120:27:16

I know that people think some of the things that

0:27:180:27:20

I have done have been a bit sort of, "God, did you hear his '80s shit?"

0:27:200:27:24

First sampling, the first computerised technology, which sounds so awful now.

0:27:290:27:34

That '80s thing where we all want to walk the plank.

0:27:370:27:41

# What kind of fool am I?

0:27:410:27:44

# Why do you take an eye for an eye... #

0:27:460:27:49

In truth, I think it's great.

0:27:500:27:53

I was trying stuff out that you don't go near.

0:27:530:27:57

And you will never go near again because it was

0:27:570:27:59

quite horrendous, in a way, but at least it was worth a shot.

0:27:590:28:02

Throughout the '80s and early '90s, Plant worked with an ever-changing cast of musicians,

0:28:130:28:19

as part of an open-house policy.

0:28:190:28:21

No longer the isolated singer of his Led Zeppelin days, stranded in the middle of the music,

0:28:210:28:26

he was becoming a part of the play, not a stage-strutting front man, but a bona fide band leader.

0:28:260:28:33

I offer so many ideas and so much input to all the pieces I'm part of.

0:28:330:28:40

But it's not always a musician's approach to it, so I have to use humour, and I'm delicate.

0:28:400:28:47

INAUDIBLE

0:28:480:28:51

I'm not showing everybody how to do it on a beautiful...Martin,

0:28:560:29:00

And saying, "If you do this..."

0:29:000:29:03

Therefore I have to adopt and become this other personality.

0:29:030:29:08

A kind of

0:29:080:29:10

self-serving ringmaster.

0:29:100:29:12

# So throw it down, Cleveland rain

0:29:170:29:19

# The Queen of love has flown again

0:29:200:29:24

# Seek her daughter... #

0:29:240:29:26

After ten years apart, Plant and Page reunited in 1994,

0:29:290:29:34

to re-imagine parts of Led Zeppelin's valuable back catalogue.

0:29:340:29:38

This time working with an Egyptian orchestra

0:29:380:29:41

and travelling to Marrakesh to collaborate with the local Gnawa tribespeople and musicians.

0:29:410:29:46

Plant was at last coming to terms with a past that until now he had attempted to bury.

0:29:460:29:51

Personally speaking I have been wanting to work with Robert for a long time.

0:29:540:29:58

We both agreed that we would have to do something that was within a new light.

0:29:580:30:02

Maybe if we were to do the old numbers it would be like

0:30:020:30:05

possibly the same picture in a different frame.

0:30:050:30:09

It's quite consoling, I was worried about it being a cliche, but when you're doing it, it's great.

0:30:090:30:14

# Woman, baby

0:30:170:30:18

# Woman, my baby

0:30:190:30:21

# When I see, baby

0:30:270:30:28

# When I see the way you say... #

0:30:290:30:33

I spent time working with Jimmy in the mid-1990s and I was very, very happy with the results at that time,

0:30:370:30:46

working with this small Egyptian orchestra

0:30:460:30:50

and revisiting old songs without it being,

0:30:500:30:54

putting new life or a different life into those songs was fantastic.

0:30:540:30:58

# Let the sun beat down on my face

0:30:580:31:03

# Stars to full my dream

0:31:030:31:06

# I am a traveller of both time and space

0:31:080:31:12

# To be where I have been

0:31:120:31:15

# To sit with elders of a gentle race

0:31:190:31:26

# This world has seldom seen

0:31:260:31:28

# And talk of days for which they sit and wait

0:31:280:31:37

# All will be revealed. #

0:31:370:31:41

If you go to Marrakech and film and work with the Gnawa spectacular.

0:31:410:31:46

# Wah, wah, wah

0:31:460:31:48

# Wah, wah

0:31:480:31:50

# Give me peace of mind And let me dance

0:31:520:31:55

# And bury all my pain

0:31:550:31:57

# In years beneath the sand

0:31:590:32:02

# Oh, la, la

0:32:020:32:03

# Ya, ya. #

0:32:030:32:06

To actually change that Wah Wah song, from their traditional

0:32:060:32:11

wah wah, which is a north African top ten favourite for the last 1,000 years,

0:32:110:32:17

I wrote these lyrics about it,

0:32:170:32:19

which were substantial enough to work alongside.

0:32:190:32:22

We interacted, it was a great thing to do.

0:32:220:32:25

Great thing to do, and really quite dramatic.

0:32:250:32:29

And, at times quite beautiful.

0:32:290:32:31

But enough's enough. When Strange Sensation first appeared, we could fly by a new flag.

0:32:420:32:48

I could, you know. The wheeze inside me were all very pleased.

0:32:480:32:51

In 2002, Plant conducted a musical experiment of Frankenstein proportions.

0:32:590:33:05

The emerging creature was appropriately called The Strange Sensation.

0:33:050:33:09

It was almost like a brainstorm, every rehearsal.

0:33:110:33:16

Created from pieces of Portishead, Massive Attack, Jah Wobble and Cast,

0:33:180:33:23

the Strange Sensation reignited Plant's solo career

0:33:230:33:26

and earned him his best reviews since the now distant days of Led Zeppelin.

0:33:260:33:30

Five remarkable guys, fantastic melange of music.

0:33:340:33:39

Every member was coming from another great place.

0:33:390:33:43

# This is the land where I live

0:33:460:33:49

# Painted all over golden

0:33:490:33:51

# Take a little sunshine

0:33:510:33:54

# Spread it all around... #

0:33:540:33:55

I had never seen so many leads, jack plugs and good intentions in one room, ever.

0:33:580:34:04

It was a workshop for another world, really.

0:34:040:34:10

# This is the love that I give

0:34:100:34:13

# These are the arms for the holding

0:34:130:34:16

# Turn on your love light

0:34:160:34:17

# Shine it all around... #

0:34:170:34:19

It was that marriage of what I experienced in 1972 in the foothills of the Atlas mountains.

0:34:220:34:28

Suddenly that was there in that room.

0:34:280:34:30

I was such a fan of what we were doing.

0:34:300:34:33

# Shine it all around... #

0:34:330:34:40

That was probably where I was bound to go as a group member.

0:34:430:34:48

If anybody had given me the key to that, and said soon, one day,

0:34:480:34:54

this is what you're going to sound like, it would be been like...

0:34:540:34:58

Surprisingly, Plant's first album with the band was a collection

0:35:150:35:18

of mostly blues and folk remakes, more important intimate songs from the soundtrack of his own life.

0:35:180:35:24

The centrepiece of which was a cover of the Tim Buckley classic, Song To The Siren.

0:35:240:35:28

This cover's everywhere, Zeppelin I was Otis Rush.

0:35:280:35:32

Led Zeppelin II was Willie Dixon.

0:35:320:35:37

I guess with Dreamland I really wanted to touch that psychedelic nerve.

0:35:390:35:46

# Did I dream

0:35:460:35:48

# You dreamed about me

0:35:500:35:52

# Were you hare

0:35:550:35:58

# And I was fox

0:35:580:35:59

# Now my foolish boat is leaning

0:36:020:36:09

# Broken lovelorn on your rocks. #

0:36:120:36:16

To visit Song To The Siren, some songs you think you can't touch.

0:36:180:36:21

That particular song is spectacular.

0:36:210:36:23

I just saw so much of myself in there.

0:36:270:36:29

As I do in quite a lot of songs that I sing of other people's.

0:36:310:36:35

Mostly I've got to be in awe of the lyric.

0:36:350:36:38

I've got to think that I can't match that.

0:36:420:36:45

# Waiting to hold you. #

0:36:460:36:51

But Plant still had a strange unshakeable sensation of his own.

0:37:030:37:07

I was rockaday Johnny in the middle of it as well.

0:37:070:37:11

I think...

0:37:110:37:13

that...

0:37:130:37:15

I didn't need to be rockaday Johnny any more.

0:37:150:37:19

If we ever work again I shall definitely be playing a baritone ukulele.

0:37:190:37:24

Strange sensations are often felt more acutely in strange surroundings,

0:37:280:37:33

so Plant and his new band sought more exotic places to perform.

0:37:330:37:37

Taking that music into Tunisia and playing at night-time with the mosque and the minaret illuminated.

0:37:410:37:47

The show being opened by Lebanese speed metal bands,

0:37:500:37:55

it's like the world is opening up.

0:37:550:37:58

It got me further and further away from the kind of UK festival scene,

0:38:030:38:09

as we know it, and more and more into playing with all those people

0:38:090:38:16

who you get 45 minutes of absolute beauty.

0:38:160:38:19

By now Plant was venturing far from the well-trodden track

0:38:300:38:33

of the established attention-hungry rock star.

0:38:330:38:36

So far it might have seen like a flight from fame, a glorious self-imposed exile.

0:38:360:38:43

In 2005, along with members of Strange Sensation,

0:38:430:38:46

he journeyed to Mali to play at the Festival In The Desert, the most remote music festival in the world.

0:38:460:38:53

I went on a plane which was full of

0:38:550:38:58

crackpots and extremists.

0:38:580:39:00

There was sort of a plane that had come out of a comic,

0:39:000:39:03

where we loaded up and I realised that everybody was going to the same place.

0:39:030:39:08

We landed somewhere in southern Morocco,

0:39:130:39:17

and then made our way with a small team from Blue Peter.

0:39:170:39:21

We were doing a programme on the current educational situation in Mali.

0:39:210:39:26

They had a tiny plane that they got from some Christian zealots,

0:39:260:39:32

who ferried people around Africa for a sum of money.

0:39:320:39:35

So we got on board, we followed a river all the way up,

0:39:410:39:45

so it was desert, desert, desert, and one patch of green.

0:39:450:39:50

The patch of green was where Ali Farka Toure had taken his income from

0:39:500:39:55

the album he had made with Ry Cooder to some artesian wells in the desert

0:39:550:40:00

and created a garden of avocados and salads and tomatoes,

0:40:000:40:05

his contribution back to his people.

0:40:050:40:09

We landed and made our way up towards the festival.

0:40:110:40:16

60 kilometres north of Timbuktu, by no roads, nothing at all,

0:40:170:40:22

just guys driving by the occasional tree that they know.

0:40:220:40:26

The rhythms of the Mississippi Blues, the translike sounds of psychedelia

0:40:570:41:02

and the vocal expressions of a continent could all be heard in the darkness of the desert night.

0:41:020:41:08

Everything Robert Plant could ever have wished for.

0:41:080:41:11

# Hey! I believe he's out of love

0:41:240:41:29

# Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. #

0:41:290:41:33

To play with Umu Sangare,

0:41:340:41:37

an amazing singer and artist,

0:41:370:41:41

just out of this world,

0:41:410:41:43

for me to be able to find something in my back pocket

0:41:430:41:48

that would fit in amongst all that was serendipity. It was fantastic.

0:41:480:41:53

THEY PLAY "WHOLE LOTTA LOVE" ON LOCAL INSTRUMENTS

0:41:560:41:59

It was like one of those huge spikes of revelation in your life

0:42:030:42:08

in every respect, not just as a performer,

0:42:080:42:13

but as a man.

0:42:130:42:16

If the tunes of Led Zeppelin were never that far away, the rock god

0:42:280:42:31

image of its ex-frontman was being buried deep in the desert sands.

0:42:310:42:36

I learn every day. I learn that the rockaday Johnny thing has got to go

0:42:360:42:42

a bit further back in the box, keep the lid down on it a bit.

0:42:420:42:47

Look at people who change for their own stimulation.

0:42:490:42:53

Look at Peter Gabriel.

0:42:580:43:01

Peter reinvents on about a five-year turn around.

0:43:010:43:06

MUSIC: "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel

0:43:060:43:09

Look at Scott Walker.

0:43:090:43:11

MUSIC: "Make It Easy On Yourself" by The Walker Brothers

0:43:110:43:15

I used to open the show for the Walker Brothers when I was 15

0:43:170:43:20

at Kidderminster Town Hall, you couldn't hear them for the screams of the girls and Scott was elevated.

0:43:200:43:28

I'm sure there was at least nine inches between his feet and the stage.

0:43:280:43:33

He just drifted through this miasma of female want,

0:43:330:43:37

and meanwhile his van was being festooned with more and more lipstick

0:43:370:43:42

that Bonzo and I were so pissed off we got some lipstick and did our own van.

0:43:420:43:47

MUSIC: "Farmer In The City" by Scott Walker

0:43:470:43:50

Then Scott moves left and right through Jacques Brel to Farmer In The City to brilliant.

0:43:520:43:58

We'll make the record and never play it again and never listen to it, but he's done it.

0:44:000:44:05

Two or three times I played that,

0:44:110:44:14

without medical assistance, and I think it's...

0:44:140:44:18

Does he care?

0:44:180:44:19

Is chronology anything to do with it? Not at all.

0:44:190:44:22

It used to be said that the song remains the same,

0:44:270:44:30

but if Plant's music is now in a permanent state of reinvention,

0:44:300:44:34

we have to seek familiarity elsewhere.

0:44:340:44:36

Luckily, it seems we can always rely on the presence of those long blonde tresses.

0:44:360:44:42

-You've still got the hair?

-I put it on in the car park.

0:44:420:44:46

MUSIC: "When The Music's Over" by The Doors

0:44:460:44:49

I cancelled my subscription to the resurrection, who said that?

0:44:490:44:52

Jim Morrison, it's all about that great gang, once upon time,

0:44:520:44:57

when there were changes to be made and music was a catalyst for a lot of beautiful change.

0:44:570:45:04

That's why sad old hippies still keep their hair long,

0:45:080:45:12

because we were part of something that meant something more than just ego and income.

0:45:120:45:18

Sad hold hippies will also try anything in the spirit of exploration, musical or otherwise.

0:45:220:45:27

With the exception of one duet, sung with Sandy Denny in 1971,

0:45:270:45:33

Plant's voice had never been entwined with that of a woman.

0:45:330:45:36

Why not surprise everyone yet again,

0:45:360:45:39

and see what an unlikely partnership with bluegrass star Alison Krauss might produce.

0:45:390:45:45

I knew that she was a spectacular singer but I also knew that she was very delicate.

0:45:450:45:50

With performing and subscribing to a part of American music I didn't really get that much.

0:45:500:45:56

But we had a couple of phone calls which were very humorous,

0:45:560:46:01

and I realised she was also somebody who wanted to try something else out.

0:46:010:46:06

We shipped our shelves to Cleveland, Ohio, rehearsed a little bit

0:46:070:46:11

with Justin and I persuaded Los Lobos to bring their Mexican instruments.

0:46:110:46:16

# Black girl, black girl

0:46:200:46:23

# Don't lie to me

0:46:230:46:26

# Tell me where did you sleep last night. #

0:46:260:46:31

If I use the word "deep", it's all for the best reasons.

0:46:310:46:36

She's deep,

0:46:360:46:38

is what they say down there in Tennessee.

0:46:380:46:41

In November 2004, Plant and Krauss debuted their singing partnership at the Cleveland Symphony Hall

0:46:470:46:53

in a tribute to Leadbelly for the rock 'n' roll Hall of Fame museum.

0:46:530:46:58

It was an amazing night, because it's that thing where you suddenly

0:47:040:47:09

see all of the things that you have done flying before you,

0:47:090:47:14

and after you and round you like a cartoon of somebody being knocked out.

0:47:140:47:18

You see the spiral of stars and exclamation marks.

0:47:180:47:23

I'm next to a beautiful woman who can sing like an angel and knows exactly what she wants.

0:47:230:47:31

And, we did it.

0:47:310:47:35

# I'm going where the cold wind blows. #

0:47:350:47:41

I thought, Jeez, what is that?

0:47:430:47:45

That's got to come back again.

0:47:470:47:49

# You caused to me to leave my home. #

0:47:520:47:58

This serenity

0:47:590:48:02

of women, it should be the collective noun for those women down there,

0:48:020:48:08

a serenity, and you know damn well that's not true.

0:48:080:48:11

On paper it looked like the music industry's number one nomination for the odd couple category,

0:48:150:48:20

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, the hills of the Black Country and the hills of Tennessee.

0:48:200:48:26

Lemon squeezing in Louisiana, whatever next?

0:48:260:48:31

# I got a woman with plenty of money

0:48:330:48:37

# She got the money and I got the honey.

0:48:410:48:45

She nurtured me through this thing,

0:48:450:48:48

she liked the idea of my voice and hers.

0:48:480:48:51

We obviously knew it worked tonally, and personality wise, the two voices really did blend great.

0:48:510:48:58

But I got a lot to learn, hey presto, I was born again.

0:48:580:49:03

-MAKING SOUNDS INTO MIC:

-Tss! Tss! Do you hear it?

0:49:030:49:08

-It's working right now.

-OK.

0:49:080:49:09

I want whatever she tried to get rid of.

0:49:090:49:11

'It was incredibly nerve-wracking,

0:49:130:49:19

because the challenge is,

0:49:190:49:22

can an old dog ever learn a new trick?

0:49:220:49:25

# Some sunny day, baby

0:49:340:49:37

# When everything seems OK, baby

0:49:370:49:39

# You'll wake up and find that you're alone

0:49:390:49:43

# Cos I'll be gone Gone, gone, gone

0:49:440:49:48

# Really gone Gone, gone, gone

0:49:490:49:54

# Because you could be wrong. #

0:49:540:49:55

Over an eight-month period, Plant, Krauss and their producer, guitarist T-Bone Burnett,

0:49:570:50:01

assembled a delicate mix of country songs, lesser known R&B numbers, blues and folk,

0:50:010:50:07

for what became a Grammy-gobbling album.

0:50:070:50:10

Every night we discussed more and more music, and more and more and more and more,

0:50:100:50:14

and the doors kept opening and CDs kept flying out and the downloads kept coming in.

0:50:140:50:20

Bollocks!

0:50:230:50:24

Because I knew about American music but I didn't know about mountain music.

0:50:240:50:28

# Oh sister, let's go down Down to the river to pray... #

0:50:280:50:36

I didn't know about the hills of Tennessee,

0:50:360:50:38

about the whole twang and the sourness of their harmonies.

0:50:380:50:42

# But I don't worry, honey

0:50:420:50:45

# Let them say what they will

0:50:450:50:49

# Come on and stick with me baby

0:50:510:50:56

# We'll find a way. #

0:50:580:51:01

-OVER-THE TOP SOUTHERN US ACCENTS:

-You did a real good job.

-And I love you, honey.

0:51:010:51:06

Will you work with me again?

0:51:060:51:09

No sooner had a country star Robert Plant arrived in the autumn of 2007,

0:51:090:51:14

than Led Zeppelin reformed for a one-off tribute concert to mark the passing

0:51:140:51:19

of Atlantic Records' Ahmet Ertegun in December.

0:51:190:51:22

The world now had many Plants to contend with.

0:51:220:51:25

For me, it's kind of like that Christmas feeling.

0:51:250:51:28

Santa Claus is coming and you're like a child waiting for the biggest present

0:51:280:51:33

you have ever waited for in your whole life.

0:51:330:51:36

Having not played publicly for over two decades,

0:51:390:51:41

Zeppelin took to the stage, albeit without John Bonham, but behind the drums sat his only son, Jason.

0:51:410:51:48

This was one of the most coveted tickets in rock history.

0:51:480:51:52

# Eyes that shine burning red... #

0:51:520:51:56

Zeppelin stormed the O2,

0:52:080:52:10

and the 64,000 question started to rear its ugly head again.

0:52:100:52:14

Robert Plant came here thinking we were gonna ask him the same question everyone is asking,

0:52:140:52:19

but we're gonna ask him anyway.

0:52:190:52:21

Can we dim the lights and have some appropriate music.

0:52:210:52:24

MUSIC: Theme from "Mastermind"

0:52:240:52:25

Thank you very much. Name Robert Plant, occupation, rock God.

0:52:250:52:28

Are Led Zeppelin going to go on tour?

0:52:280:52:30

Steve Bull is now the manager of Stafford Rangers.

0:52:300:52:32

His first home game is on Saturday. Please turn up.

0:52:320:52:35

They say there's going to be 3,000 or 4,000 and he's buying a striker.

0:52:350:52:40

-Is that a yes or a no?

-I feel a funny feeling coming on!

0:52:400:52:46

That was a "no".

0:52:460:52:49

You should have been a politician with the inability to answer a direct question.

0:52:490:52:54

Plant and Alison Krauss have yet to repeat their run away success together.

0:52:590:53:04

Krauss returned to her bluegrass roots, but Plant was on a roll.

0:53:040:53:08

He returned to Tennessee and created an entirely new band.

0:53:080:53:11

This time in collaboration with Emmylou Harris's guitarist,

0:53:110:53:15

Buddy Miller and featuring guest singer/songwriter, Pattie Griffin.

0:53:150:53:18

Plant christened them The Band of Joy.

0:53:180:53:22

His nod to a pre-Led Zeppelin past while restlessly moving on...again.

0:53:220:53:26

Two hours ago when I started talking to you, I said we were in it, shit or bust.

0:53:290:53:36

The Band of Joy was no matter what we believed.

0:53:360:53:40

Therefore, we played accordingly, with great extravagance and aplomb and indulge and "baaaah"!

0:53:400:53:47

I really felt, as we started to develop this record,

0:53:470:53:51

in a more mature way I was doing the same thing again in a way.

0:53:510:53:55

# Tonight you will be mine

0:53:550:53:59

# Tonight the monkey dies. #

0:54:040:54:10

The subtlety in this is the counterpoint

0:54:120:54:17

to the bravado in the original Band of Joy.

0:54:170:54:22

It's the same deal, but it's a bit more internal.

0:54:220:54:26

Since going to Tennessee, I've heard the most spectacular songwriters,

0:54:380:54:42

and I was kind of fishing out beautiful little pieces of other people's work,

0:54:420:54:48

and twisting them around a bit with such remarkable musical company.

0:54:480:54:54

# Tonight the monkey dies. #

0:54:540:55:01

I played the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival twice in the last three years.

0:55:010:55:05

A three-day event which is open to everyone.

0:55:050:55:10

They say 750,000 people move through it.

0:55:100:55:13

There are five stages and you have pure bluegrass, country,

0:55:130:55:18

rockabilly, singer-songwriters, it's just amazing.

0:55:180:55:23

In the middle of it all stands Ralph Stanley singing, Oh Death.

0:55:230:55:26

You go, how did I miss that for all those years? It's amazing.

0:55:260:55:32

# Oh, death

0:55:320:55:39

# Whoa, death

0:55:410:55:48

# Won't you spare me over to another year... #

0:55:480:55:55

30 years ago, Led Zeppelin crashed and burned.

0:55:560:55:59

Since then Robert Plant has wrestled the singular image of a stage straddling rock god

0:55:590:56:04

to emerge as a man of many selves, hell bent on exploring all of them.

0:56:040:56:09

Now it has to be right, and right in a very casual and easy way.

0:56:110:56:15

Meanwhile that over there was fine, but this is serious stuff.

0:56:150:56:20

I'm pretty intense,

0:56:200:56:23

so I have to unhitch some of that stuff and get it spot on in 2010.

0:56:230:56:30

When I was a kid I thought that Robert Johnson had the whole world sewn up with the lyrics,

0:56:340:56:39

the kind of sexual innuendo and stuff like that, because it was a hoot,

0:56:390:56:43

it was funny but very clever. It was fine, all fine, all fine, all fine,

0:56:430:56:49

but to actually make those work later in life, I think you have

0:56:490:56:54

to either have to be prepared to go into character, or in many respects, shelve it.

0:56:540:57:00

My grandfather was a musician, my great-grandfather was a musician.

0:57:040:57:08

They formed really important Black Country brass bands.

0:57:080:57:12

Which had posh names, but were usually known as the Dudley Port Drinking Band.

0:57:120:57:18

It goes on and on and on.

0:57:180:57:21

The only difference was they were playing Sousa marches,

0:57:210:57:24

and there was no squeeze my lemon involved, you know.

0:57:240:57:26

The only thing they had to change was their tunics as their portage increased.

0:57:260:57:31

We have to make sure we change our mind enough to make it worthwhile.

0:57:310:57:36

# Ah-ah

0:57:410:57:43

-# Ah-ah CROWD:

-# Ah-ah

0:57:450:57:48

# Ah-ah

0:57:480:57:50

# Ah-ah

0:57:500:57:51

# Ahhhhh... #

0:57:510:57:53

Whether it's an incredibly dreadful performance at Live Aid,

0:57:560:58:00

or an evening in Mali, or country music awards on CMT,

0:58:000:58:06

whatever it is they are moments.

0:58:060:58:08

If I like the idea of it and I can talk myself into these positions,

0:58:080:58:12

I'm going to do it because it's just crazy.

0:58:120:58:15

How many mes are there?

0:58:160:58:18

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:58:300:58:32

E-mail [email protected]

0:58:320:58:34

Download Subtitles

SRT

ASS