0:00:02 > 0:00:03# Hey, mamma, say the way you move gonna make you sweat
0:00:03 > 0:00:05# Gonna make you groove... #
0:00:10 > 0:00:12As frontman for the mighty Led Zeppelin,
0:00:12 > 0:00:15Robert Plant was the voice of rock for a generation of men and women.
0:00:15 > 0:00:21Fusing raw sexual power and mystical longing with his powerhouse vocals,
0:00:21 > 0:00:24long blonde main and strutting stage presence.
0:00:24 > 0:00:26# Oh, yeah, oh, yeah... #
0:00:26 > 0:00:30But what do you do next when the world's greatest rock band
0:00:30 > 0:00:34crashes and burns, how do you pick yourself up and move on, alone?
0:00:38 > 0:00:40CHEERING
0:00:44 > 0:00:48For the last 30 years, Robert Plant has been forging a solo career,
0:00:48 > 0:00:51sometimes struggling with the baggage of rock superstardom,
0:00:51 > 0:00:55revealing more selves in a number of unexpected collaborations.
0:00:55 > 0:00:58He has followed his muse wherever it has taken him.
0:00:58 > 0:01:03From the deserts of Africa to the hills of Tennessee.
0:01:03 > 0:01:07This is Robert Plant's story, in his own words.
0:01:31 > 0:01:36The cards fell very favourably for me. I went to a grammar school, which
0:01:36 > 0:01:42was part of Stourbridge town, which had a really creative and flamboyant art college.
0:01:44 > 0:01:50People actually got scholarships to come from around Europe to study and create.
0:01:50 > 0:01:54So there was a kind of great vibration in what would normally be
0:01:54 > 0:01:57a little old town on the edge of the Black Country.
0:02:03 > 0:02:08Folk clubs sprung up and jazz clubs. I was able to hang around on the edge of all these little societies.
0:02:08 > 0:02:16So I could hear John Coltrane or Woody Guthrie or Dixieland jazz, I could hear
0:02:16 > 0:02:20unaccompanied singing of beautiful Scottish Airs and all this
0:02:20 > 0:02:27while the foundries of the Black Country beat their great rhythm.
0:02:33 > 0:02:38As most towns in the early '60s had a town hall or similar,
0:02:38 > 0:02:44so through the town came The Pretty Things.
0:02:44 > 0:02:46The Walker Brothers.
0:02:46 > 0:02:49The Merseybeats rolled into Stourbridge in a
0:02:49 > 0:02:54blue and white American station wagon filled up with equipment.
0:02:54 > 0:02:59These renegade guys, who ran off with all our teen queens.
0:03:04 > 0:03:09There would be the boys fighting in Dudley to the rhythm of Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent.
0:03:10 > 0:03:18Bohemian meetings on the top of the hills, with people singing great Big Bill Broonzy pieces.
0:03:18 > 0:03:20There would be so many different things going on.
0:03:21 > 0:03:27Whatever's come my way as far as my own music dalliances,
0:03:27 > 0:03:33has come from having a keen ear and really wanting to explore...
0:03:33 > 0:03:35PHONE RINGS
0:03:35 > 0:03:36Oh, that will be the wife.
0:03:36 > 0:03:40Oh, I haven't got one, that's kind of neat.
0:03:40 > 0:03:42# You are my sunshine
0:03:42 > 0:03:45# My only sunshine
0:03:46 > 0:03:47# You make me happy... #
0:03:47 > 0:03:51Robert Plant didn't only listen to everything, he wanted to perform.
0:03:51 > 0:03:57If American rock'n'roll inspired many young kids to pick up a guitar or learn to play the drums,
0:03:57 > 0:04:01Plant was inspired by the strange power and sexual charge of its upfront vocal.
0:04:01 > 0:04:04# My sunshine... #
0:04:04 > 0:04:06When I first heard the rock'n'roll singers
0:04:06 > 0:04:12there was a swagger and a lurch in the voice, which was other worldly to me.
0:04:12 > 0:04:13# Kiss me, baby
0:04:13 > 0:04:16# Wooh, woo-oh
0:04:16 > 0:04:18# It feels good... #
0:04:18 > 0:04:25I suppose I was quite interested in my stamp collection and Romano-British history.
0:04:25 > 0:04:30I was a little grammar schoolboy, and I could hear this calling through the airwaves.
0:04:30 > 0:04:33# One night with you... #
0:04:33 > 0:04:39I could hear this voice transmuting into something completely different than the spoken word
0:04:39 > 0:04:45and way different to Dickie Valentine and all the British crooners who were just about to get their P45s.
0:04:48 > 0:04:52By 1962, the hippest audiences in Britain were enthralled to
0:04:52 > 0:04:56American blues artists, some of whom had begun touring the UK.
0:04:56 > 0:05:02They were the trailblazers of what would become, in the hands of young white kids, the British blues boom.
0:05:04 > 0:05:09# Got my mojo working but it just don't work on you... #
0:05:09 > 0:05:16The black music we listened to was sexy, alluring,
0:05:16 > 0:05:19it had great driving beats and rhythms, which we couldn't even get near.
0:05:19 > 0:05:22# I'm going down to Louisiana to
0:05:22 > 0:05:24# Get me a mojo hand... #
0:05:28 > 0:05:33You're there with every single breath of what the guy is doing.
0:05:33 > 0:05:38I suppose, really, I wouldn't have been able to put that into words at the time. I was just mesmerised.
0:05:38 > 0:05:40# I wanna
0:05:40 > 0:05:43# Tell everybody in the
0:05:45 > 0:05:47# Neighbourhood
0:05:47 > 0:05:51# But I get n-n-n-nervous
0:05:53 > 0:05:54# M-m-man
0:05:54 > 0:05:57# Do I get nervous... #
0:05:57 > 0:06:03If you go back to when I first started doing it, I was 14 and a half years old.
0:06:03 > 0:06:07# N-n-n, nervous man... #
0:06:07 > 0:06:13All I was doing was getting through the song and getting to the end.
0:06:13 > 0:06:17And getting away with it - it was great!
0:06:19 > 0:06:22Plant would later pay his dues at the school of British blues
0:06:22 > 0:06:27that centred around musician and impresario Alexis Corner,
0:06:27 > 0:06:32whose small basement club in Ealing became the mecca for every would-be blues performer in the UK.
0:06:32 > 0:06:38He was a fantastic catalyst. He was almost the home of
0:06:38 > 0:06:43all the dewy-eyed kids who wanted to play rhythm and blues.
0:06:43 > 0:06:45CHEERING AND SCREAMING
0:06:45 > 0:06:47Nurturing work with the Stones,
0:06:47 > 0:06:49Jimmy Page and myself.
0:06:58 > 0:07:00# I'm gonna tell you how it's gonna be
0:07:02 > 0:07:04# You're gonna give your love to me... #
0:07:04 > 0:07:09So many people came by and through that school of British blues.
0:07:09 > 0:07:11There was something going on, but it was a hybrid.
0:07:12 > 0:07:14# Feeling funny in my mind, Lord
0:07:14 > 0:07:16# I believe I'm fixing to die... #
0:07:16 > 0:07:20At that period in time the great change was coming.
0:07:20 > 0:07:21# I don't mind dying
0:07:21 > 0:07:24# But I hate to leave my children crying... #
0:07:24 > 0:07:30You go from Gene Vincent and that precocious sexually-charged rock music,
0:07:30 > 0:07:36into the whole social commentary that was developing.
0:07:36 > 0:07:41# Look over yonder to that burial ground... #
0:07:41 > 0:07:47The first two or three Dylan albums, that was a whole different way of telling a story.
0:07:50 > 0:07:54By 1967, the stories and the storytellers were getting weirder
0:07:54 > 0:08:00and weirder, American psychedelic music, which synthesized rock, folk, blues and jazz for the stoned
0:08:00 > 0:08:05and socially conscious, showed Plant a world of possibilities.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12We were always looking west for musical form.
0:08:22 > 0:08:29The whole idea of a psychedelic movement in the UK was based on a drug experience to some degree,
0:08:29 > 0:08:35but there was no foundation for it, there was no train of thought, and a process that actually
0:08:35 > 0:08:42allowed the thing to grow out of the coffee bar folk scenes of Greenwich village and the Troubadour in LA.
0:08:47 > 0:08:52We didn't really have that, so sadly, the British psychedelic movement was
0:08:52 > 0:08:55almost trivial and some sort of novelty thing.
0:08:55 > 0:08:59# Close my eyes and drift away... #
0:09:10 > 0:09:16So after the various bands that had been in, I ended up with the Band Of Joy
0:09:16 > 0:09:21and with John Bonham and heading into a blues-based zone,
0:09:21 > 0:09:27but by that time incorporating the effects that Dylan had created in the American culture
0:09:27 > 0:09:29on the west coast.
0:09:31 > 0:09:37Band Of Joy combined blues and psychedelia, songs and extended musical workouts.
0:09:37 > 0:09:41A little taste of flower power, but with an emphasis on the power.
0:09:41 > 0:09:46# Something happening here
0:09:46 > 0:09:52# What it is ain't exactly clear... #
0:09:52 > 0:09:56Bonzo was totally and utterly devoted to getting it right.
0:09:56 > 0:10:00Everything he listened to he could go beyond.
0:10:00 > 0:10:03Not only could he recreate it but take it somewhere new.
0:10:05 > 0:10:08# Stop, yeah, what's that sound
0:10:08 > 0:10:11# Everybody look what's going down... #
0:10:11 > 0:10:15He knew that he was a powerhouse among drummers.
0:10:15 > 0:10:17# ..what's going down... #
0:10:17 > 0:10:20So he was pretty hard to deal with, and so was I,
0:10:20 > 0:10:24because I felt exactly the same about what I was doing.
0:10:24 > 0:10:29Even though we were obnoxious to everybody else, we seemed to have great affinity for each other.
0:10:29 > 0:10:32# Paranoia striking deep
0:10:32 > 0:10:34# To your mind... #
0:10:34 > 0:10:40There was a lot of edge to it. It meant neither of us could slacken off.
0:10:40 > 0:10:45So the Band of Joy was quite an energy centre.
0:10:45 > 0:10:50# Baby, baby, please come home, yeah... #
0:10:52 > 0:10:57I hear it and its effects in the early stuff that we did with Jimmy and John Paul,
0:10:57 > 0:11:02definitely because we pushed it and pushed it to try to make it so special,
0:11:02 > 0:11:05that it was earth-shattering, and we did it.
0:11:05 > 0:11:10We did it. I'm here on behalf of the two of us to say that at times we did it.
0:11:15 > 0:11:221967, the Band of Joy joined a British underground club circuit, now dominated by
0:11:22 > 0:11:26blues rock, folk rock, jazz rock and progressive rock.
0:11:26 > 0:11:32We were really rotating around an amazing club scene.
0:11:35 > 0:11:39It was great. Because it was vibrant, it was really all you could
0:11:39 > 0:11:43have ever wished for as a musician, to be playing to people who got it.
0:11:47 > 0:11:52But they didn't get the Band Of Joy. Penniless, Bonham and Plant were forced, temporarily,
0:11:52 > 0:11:55to go their separate ways.
0:11:56 > 0:11:57# Come tomorrow
0:11:57 > 0:11:58# Would I be bolder
0:11:58 > 0:12:02# Than today... #
0:12:06 > 0:12:11But news of Plant's vocal power reached the ears of Jimmy Page, guitarist for The Yardbirds,
0:12:11 > 0:12:15with the departure of their vocalist Keith Relf and drummer Jim McCarty,
0:12:15 > 0:12:18Page was looking to transform the band into something called The New Yardbirds,
0:12:18 > 0:12:25but with the addition of Plant and later his drummer pal John Bonham, the band was rechristened.
0:12:30 > 0:12:35Those guys were kicking it, but it had expired, so rebuild.
0:12:35 > 0:12:37Rebuild and see what it turns into.
0:12:37 > 0:12:41When something is as radically different as what it turned in to,
0:12:43 > 0:12:46obviously it is a new day entirely.
0:12:46 > 0:12:48And that old name is history.
0:12:49 > 0:12:51# Baby
0:12:51 > 0:12:54# How could you do it
0:12:54 > 0:12:57# Baby
0:12:57 > 0:12:59# How could you do it
0:13:01 > 0:13:03# I don't know what it is I like about you
0:13:03 > 0:13:05# But I like it a lot
0:13:05 > 0:13:09# Oh, let me hold you
0:13:09 > 0:13:11# Let me feel your loving
0:13:12 > 0:13:15# Communication breakdown
0:13:15 > 0:13:16# It's always the same
0:13:18 > 0:13:20# Having a total breakdown
0:13:20 > 0:13:22# Drive me insane
0:13:22 > 0:13:25# Oh-h-h-h... #
0:13:25 > 0:13:30We didn't really know the worth of what was coming round the corner.
0:13:30 > 0:13:31Everybody involved in that project,
0:13:31 > 0:13:36from Peter Grant through to everybody that was playing, and Jimmy and John Paul,
0:13:36 > 0:13:43who actually financed it in its early stages, were all just seeing, what is this thing all about?
0:13:43 > 0:13:50As you know a million times it's been said within five minutes we've got something,
0:13:50 > 0:13:54which was quite unusual.
0:13:54 > 0:13:56In a way almost
0:13:58 > 0:13:59so
0:13:59 > 0:14:02intense and
0:14:02 > 0:14:06on that it was overwhelming really.
0:14:14 > 0:14:16# See my baby coming down the track
0:14:18 > 0:14:19# Is my baby coming back
0:14:22 > 0:14:24# Some day she gets back to me
0:14:24 > 0:14:28# We're gonna raise a family... #
0:14:29 > 0:14:33Having John in the picture, my sort of
0:14:33 > 0:14:35inflammable pal,
0:14:35 > 0:14:40made it so much better and so much more realistic.
0:14:40 > 0:14:43There was nothing phoney about it at all, it was just, boom.
0:14:49 > 0:14:53It was coming from the era of virtuosity,
0:14:53 > 0:14:56it was about being good, and the
0:14:56 > 0:15:01chemistry and weave between greatness, to be knocked out.
0:15:04 > 0:15:06# You had an abuse
0:15:06 > 0:15:08# Telling all of your lies
0:15:09 > 0:15:11# Sweet little baby, baby
0:15:11 > 0:15:14# How you hypnotise... #
0:15:14 > 0:15:19I have always felt slightly remote and slightly...
0:15:21 > 0:15:24..yeah, not insular,
0:15:24 > 0:15:30but my role in all that really was peppering the musical moments on the more elongated pieces of music.
0:15:33 > 0:15:38I always think about it as being that little melody that runs through all middle of that great playing.
0:15:38 > 0:15:41But first, hear this...
0:15:50 > 0:15:55- It's cool, groovy, it's number one, the Led Zeppelin.- The Led what?
0:15:55 > 0:15:59The Led Zeppelin, but I'm afraid and you and other dads like you may have never heard of them,
0:15:59 > 0:16:03but this British group has made musical history today.
0:16:03 > 0:16:06Readers of the Melody Maker have voted them the top world group.
0:16:06 > 0:16:09The significance is The Beatles held this for eight years.
0:16:13 > 0:16:18The year is 1970, only two years after their formation,
0:16:18 > 0:16:25Led Zeppelin have already become an international success story - the greatest rock band in the world.
0:16:25 > 0:16:27# Shake for me, girl
0:16:29 > 0:16:31# I wanna be your backdoor man... #
0:16:31 > 0:16:34Globe-trotting tours, chart-topping albums and scandalous stories
0:16:34 > 0:16:37of rock'n'roll excess, were already part of a growing
0:16:37 > 0:16:43Zeppelin mythology, made all the more tantalising by their increasing avoidance of the media.
0:16:43 > 0:16:46TV interviews were extremely rare.
0:16:46 > 0:16:51Do you think as musicians you can last as long as eight years? Will you be inventive enough?
0:16:51 > 0:16:57I remember when I first went to see The Beatles - we've mentioned them a few times -
0:16:57 > 0:16:59it was to look at them.
0:16:59 > 0:17:05You didn't bother what you were listening to. Today it is not what you are, it is what you are playing.
0:17:05 > 0:17:09You must be quite rich now, what is it like having money?
0:17:09 > 0:17:15To have money at last is just another figure in my mind of mass acceptance,
0:17:15 > 0:17:17which is what we all work for.
0:17:17 > 0:17:20Everybody, however much they like to deny the fact,
0:17:20 > 0:17:22really wants in the end, to be accepted by
0:17:22 > 0:17:28majority of people, for being either a talent or a commodity.
0:17:28 > 0:17:36So invincible were Led Zeppelin that they became band apart in a world where hugeness and greatness,
0:17:36 > 0:17:39record sales and artistic achievement become thoroughly confused.
0:17:39 > 0:17:44CHEERING
0:17:45 > 0:17:50There is a consensus of opinion that decides that greatness will survive.
0:17:50 > 0:17:57There are huge, vast pockets of other music, which are equally spectacular,
0:17:57 > 0:17:59but for marginally different reasons -
0:17:59 > 0:18:06they never quite got that huge acceptance and mass hysteria.
0:18:06 > 0:18:10CHEERING
0:18:11 > 0:18:14So a miss is as good as a mile in way.
0:18:14 > 0:18:18It's that great thing about Forever Changes, the Love album,
0:18:18 > 0:18:23how did that never be successful?
0:18:23 > 0:18:29And yet it continues forever to always be part of the soundtrack of millions of people's lives.
0:18:32 > 0:18:34Funny old game that.
0:18:38 > 0:18:44Zeppelin, and Robert Plant in particular, had cornered the market in raw rock'n'roll sexuality.
0:18:44 > 0:18:50Something that now sits uneasily with man who, back in the day, epitomised the rock god.
0:18:51 > 0:18:59The estimation of any group of people about any one person is always
0:18:59 > 0:19:02generally a million miles from where it's really at.
0:19:06 > 0:19:12So, therefore, if I have a surge in creativity and it sticks to the wall for a while,
0:19:12 > 0:19:14which is what's been happening recently,
0:19:14 > 0:19:20points of reference for the media are so cliched, it's frightening.
0:19:20 > 0:19:27You cannot judge anybody's work by just going to the spikes and saying,
0:19:27 > 0:19:30because my spikes are the bits that nobody really thinks about.
0:19:30 > 0:19:38My spikes were getting off the plane in 1972 and driving into the Atlas Mountains with a tape machine,
0:19:38 > 0:19:44exploring Berber singers in the fields, walking through farmers' markets
0:19:44 > 0:19:47in the middle of nowhere with a rattle of drums in the corner.
0:19:47 > 0:19:51RHYTHMIC DRUMBEAT PLAYS
0:19:53 > 0:19:58Those were the moments that are so far away from rock god, but they were spectacular.
0:19:58 > 0:20:00CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
0:20:00 > 0:20:05But with the unpredictable highs came unexpected lows.
0:20:05 > 0:20:09In 1977 Robert Plant lost his oldest son, Karac,
0:20:09 > 0:20:12to a virus at the age of five.
0:20:12 > 0:20:16Three years later, drummer John Bonham also died, aged 32.
0:20:16 > 0:20:22All of us individually had been thinking about what would happen next, no matter what.
0:20:22 > 0:20:28Because the illusion had run its course.
0:20:28 > 0:20:30I had already,
0:20:30 > 0:20:34as part of my beautiful family, lost my boy.
0:20:35 > 0:20:40And then you think, I really have to decide what to do.
0:20:42 > 0:20:45I applied to become a teacher...
0:20:46 > 0:20:51..in the Rudolf Steiner education system.
0:20:51 > 0:20:57I was accepted to go to teacher training college, this was in 1978.
0:20:57 > 0:21:00I was really quite keen to just walk,
0:21:00 > 0:21:04because as much as it was spectacular, it also wasn't spectacular.
0:21:06 > 0:21:10You know, you do change as the days go by, you have to get harder and tougher,
0:21:10 > 0:21:14but you still have this soft underbelly.
0:21:16 > 0:21:18John had lured me back in...
0:21:18 > 0:21:21not lured, that's wrong, John had
0:21:21 > 0:21:25been incredibly supportive to me.
0:21:25 > 0:21:28So to lose John was
0:21:28 > 0:21:32that was the end of any naivety.
0:21:36 > 0:21:40It was very, very evident that my last connection was severed, really.
0:21:43 > 0:21:45As far as
0:21:45 > 0:21:49strong affairs of the heart and a confederacy and stuff, it was gone.
0:21:51 > 0:21:55On the 4th December 1980, Led Zeppelin announced, with the death of their
0:21:55 > 0:21:58drummer, John Bonham, the band would split.
0:22:01 > 0:22:05We don't have to talk about it for too long, because it is such old ground.
0:22:05 > 0:22:10It was something that you come away from going I could never be as good as that
0:22:10 > 0:22:15in any other place, or any other moment than that, which just happened.
0:22:17 > 0:22:21You just find some way of getting home.
0:22:29 > 0:22:32Plant's long journey home began with a trip to Rockfield, a sales studio
0:22:32 > 0:22:35on the Welsh borders, to record two albums in quick succession.
0:22:35 > 0:22:40This was Robert Plant 1980s-style, suited, booted
0:22:40 > 0:22:46and ever so slightly sheared, this was Robert Plant out on his own.
0:22:48 > 0:22:51# Slipped through the window by the back door
0:22:52 > 0:22:55# Caught short in transit with my love... #
0:22:55 > 0:23:00If this is entertainment, if it was entertainment, then it was time to entertain, myself.
0:23:06 > 0:23:11So I decided to make two records really quickly, and start to embrace new ideas and new people.
0:23:11 > 0:23:15Really from that moment on I decided I would never let the grass
0:23:15 > 0:23:20grow under my feet, that I was a man of the world, as a player
0:23:20 > 0:23:23and as a player in every respect.
0:23:23 > 0:23:25I really wanted to see what was out there.
0:23:29 > 0:23:32Shit or bust, it was going to be exactly how I wanted it to be.
0:23:32 > 0:23:35# Just playing hooky with my heart... #
0:23:36 > 0:23:39Something Plant had to face, once he was back in the studio,
0:23:39 > 0:23:43was the absence of his old partner in crime, John Bonham.
0:23:44 > 0:23:50To have a drummer after working with John since I was 16, or whatever,
0:23:50 > 0:23:54to turn around and see somebody else there is
0:23:54 > 0:23:57a bit of a weird thing to be thinking about.
0:23:57 > 0:24:00Phil Collins turned up.
0:24:04 > 0:24:11He'd been such a huge fan of John's work, and he fired every session
0:24:11 > 0:24:15and blasted the room with butane and energy.
0:24:15 > 0:24:18He got on everybody's case if people were slack,
0:24:18 > 0:24:20if they weren't quite on it, he would stand up and make points
0:24:20 > 0:24:25with his drumstick and frowning that frown across the room,
0:24:25 > 0:24:29which gave me great confidence.
0:24:29 > 0:24:36I would still tiptoe in, I was 32 years old, my career had ended.
0:24:36 > 0:24:39Anything that came after that was
0:24:39 > 0:24:41my business entirely.
0:24:45 > 0:24:50When we saw him next in 1982, Robert Plant was a solo artist.
0:24:50 > 0:24:55Did it take a lot of courage on your part to make a solo album after 12 years?
0:24:55 > 0:25:00I guess so, it was a little uncomfortable to begin with, after being with
0:25:00 > 0:25:03Jimmy for so long and Jonesy and Bonzo,
0:25:03 > 0:25:07it's a little weird to walk on as a guest.
0:25:07 > 0:25:11You are so used to working in the confines of one set-up.
0:25:11 > 0:25:13Is it fair to say officially now to these people and the nation, that
0:25:13 > 0:25:17Led Zeppelin will not work together any more?
0:25:17 > 0:25:18No.
0:25:18 > 0:25:21It is not fair to say?
0:25:21 > 0:25:24No, they won't work together again, it's gone.
0:25:26 > 0:25:29# Have you heard the news... #
0:25:29 > 0:25:33Plant returned to his teens and his love of American rock'n'roll vocalists
0:25:33 > 0:25:40for a third solo album in 1984, recorded with his short lived all-star band The Honeydrippers.
0:25:40 > 0:25:43It is like, "Now what's he done?
0:25:43 > 0:25:49"Plant has done it again." It's like a Just William book, or Jennings and Derbyshire.
0:25:50 > 0:25:52# Pretty soon they had done it all
0:25:52 > 0:25:55# Those fellas got drunk and they had a ball... #
0:25:55 > 0:26:03Ahmet Ertegun had signed Zeppelin to Atlantic and also happened to sign Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin,
0:26:03 > 0:26:10The Coasters, The Drifters, Modern Jazz Quartet, John Coltrane, the Iron Butterfly,
0:26:10 > 0:26:12Crosby Stole The Stash.
0:26:12 > 0:26:17I used to go out with him and Phil Spector in New York around clubs,
0:26:17 > 0:26:22we would end up in a corner, inebriated, singing outros of Gene Vincent songs
0:26:22 > 0:26:25and touching on a Gene Pitney classic.
0:26:26 > 0:26:32He used to say all you do is you have all this stuff in your head, all this phrasing and vocal stuff,
0:26:32 > 0:26:35you should do some songs like that.
0:26:39 > 0:26:41# He can go... #
0:26:41 > 0:26:45The Honeydrippers thing arrived, I think I called it Volume One,
0:26:45 > 0:26:50because the idea of there being a volume two was a hoot.
0:26:58 > 0:27:02# Do you remember when we met
0:27:04 > 0:27:08# That's day I knew you were mine
0:27:08 > 0:27:11# I want to tell you
0:27:12 > 0:27:16# How much I love you... #
0:27:18 > 0:27:20I know that people think some of the things that
0:27:20 > 0:27:24I have done have been a bit sort of, "God, did you hear his '80s shit?"
0:27:29 > 0:27:34First sampling, the first computerised technology, which sounds so awful now.
0:27:37 > 0:27:41That '80s thing where we all want to walk the plank.
0:27:41 > 0:27:44# What kind of fool am I?
0:27:46 > 0:27:49# Why do you take an eye for an eye... #
0:27:50 > 0:27:53In truth, I think it's great.
0:27:53 > 0:27:57I was trying stuff out that you don't go near.
0:27:57 > 0:27:59And you will never go near again because it was
0:27:59 > 0:28:02quite horrendous, in a way, but at least it was worth a shot.
0:28:13 > 0:28:19Throughout the '80s and early '90s, Plant worked with an ever-changing cast of musicians,
0:28:19 > 0:28:21as part of an open-house policy.
0:28:21 > 0:28:26No longer the isolated singer of his Led Zeppelin days, stranded in the middle of the music,
0:28:26 > 0:28:33he was becoming a part of the play, not a stage-strutting front man, but a bona fide band leader.
0:28:33 > 0:28:40I offer so many ideas and so much input to all the pieces I'm part of.
0:28:40 > 0:28:47But it's not always a musician's approach to it, so I have to use humour, and I'm delicate.
0:28:48 > 0:28:51INAUDIBLE
0:28:56 > 0:29:00I'm not showing everybody how to do it on a beautiful...Martin,
0:29:00 > 0:29:03And saying, "If you do this..."
0:29:03 > 0:29:08Therefore I have to adopt and become this other personality.
0:29:08 > 0:29:10A kind of
0:29:10 > 0:29:12self-serving ringmaster.
0:29:17 > 0:29:19# So throw it down, Cleveland rain
0:29:20 > 0:29:24# The Queen of love has flown again
0:29:24 > 0:29:26# Seek her daughter... #
0:29:29 > 0:29:34After ten years apart, Plant and Page reunited in 1994,
0:29:34 > 0:29:38to re-imagine parts of Led Zeppelin's valuable back catalogue.
0:29:38 > 0:29:41This time working with an Egyptian orchestra
0:29:41 > 0:29:46and travelling to Marrakesh to collaborate with the local Gnawa tribespeople and musicians.
0:29:46 > 0:29:51Plant was at last coming to terms with a past that until now he had attempted to bury.
0:29:54 > 0:29:58Personally speaking I have been wanting to work with Robert for a long time.
0:29:58 > 0:30:02We both agreed that we would have to do something that was within a new light.
0:30:02 > 0:30:05Maybe if we were to do the old numbers it would be like
0:30:05 > 0:30:09possibly the same picture in a different frame.
0:30:09 > 0:30:14It's quite consoling, I was worried about it being a cliche, but when you're doing it, it's great.
0:30:17 > 0:30:18# Woman, baby
0:30:19 > 0:30:21# Woman, my baby
0:30:27 > 0:30:28# When I see, baby
0:30:29 > 0:30:33# When I see the way you say... #
0:30:37 > 0:30:46I spent time working with Jimmy in the mid-1990s and I was very, very happy with the results at that time,
0:30:46 > 0:30:50working with this small Egyptian orchestra
0:30:50 > 0:30:54and revisiting old songs without it being,
0:30:54 > 0:30:58putting new life or a different life into those songs was fantastic.
0:30:58 > 0:31:03# Let the sun beat down on my face
0:31:03 > 0:31:06# Stars to full my dream
0:31:08 > 0:31:12# I am a traveller of both time and space
0:31:12 > 0:31:15# To be where I have been
0:31:19 > 0:31:26# To sit with elders of a gentle race
0:31:26 > 0:31:28# This world has seldom seen
0:31:28 > 0:31:37# And talk of days for which they sit and wait
0:31:37 > 0:31:41# All will be revealed. #
0:31:41 > 0:31:46If you go to Marrakech and film and work with the Gnawa spectacular.
0:31:46 > 0:31:48# Wah, wah, wah
0:31:48 > 0:31:50# Wah, wah
0:31:52 > 0:31:55# Give me peace of mind And let me dance
0:31:55 > 0:31:57# And bury all my pain
0:31:59 > 0:32:02# In years beneath the sand
0:32:02 > 0:32:03# Oh, la, la
0:32:03 > 0:32:06# Ya, ya. #
0:32:06 > 0:32:11To actually change that Wah Wah song, from their traditional
0:32:11 > 0:32:17wah wah, which is a north African top ten favourite for the last 1,000 years,
0:32:17 > 0:32:19I wrote these lyrics about it,
0:32:19 > 0:32:22which were substantial enough to work alongside.
0:32:22 > 0:32:25We interacted, it was a great thing to do.
0:32:25 > 0:32:29Great thing to do, and really quite dramatic.
0:32:29 > 0:32:31And, at times quite beautiful.
0:32:42 > 0:32:48But enough's enough. When Strange Sensation first appeared, we could fly by a new flag.
0:32:48 > 0:32:51I could, you know. The wheeze inside me were all very pleased.
0:32:59 > 0:33:05In 2002, Plant conducted a musical experiment of Frankenstein proportions.
0:33:05 > 0:33:09The emerging creature was appropriately called The Strange Sensation.
0:33:11 > 0:33:16It was almost like a brainstorm, every rehearsal.
0:33:18 > 0:33:23Created from pieces of Portishead, Massive Attack, Jah Wobble and Cast,
0:33:23 > 0:33:26the Strange Sensation reignited Plant's solo career
0:33:26 > 0:33:30and earned him his best reviews since the now distant days of Led Zeppelin.
0:33:34 > 0:33:39Five remarkable guys, fantastic melange of music.
0:33:39 > 0:33:43Every member was coming from another great place.
0:33:46 > 0:33:49# This is the land where I live
0:33:49 > 0:33:51# Painted all over golden
0:33:51 > 0:33:54# Take a little sunshine
0:33:54 > 0:33:55# Spread it all around... #
0:33:58 > 0:34:04I had never seen so many leads, jack plugs and good intentions in one room, ever.
0:34:04 > 0:34:10It was a workshop for another world, really.
0:34:10 > 0:34:13# This is the love that I give
0:34:13 > 0:34:16# These are the arms for the holding
0:34:16 > 0:34:17# Turn on your love light
0:34:17 > 0:34:19# Shine it all around... #
0:34:22 > 0:34:28It was that marriage of what I experienced in 1972 in the foothills of the Atlas mountains.
0:34:28 > 0:34:30Suddenly that was there in that room.
0:34:30 > 0:34:33I was such a fan of what we were doing.
0:34:33 > 0:34:40# Shine it all around... #
0:34:43 > 0:34:48That was probably where I was bound to go as a group member.
0:34:48 > 0:34:54If anybody had given me the key to that, and said soon, one day,
0:34:54 > 0:34:58this is what you're going to sound like, it would be been like...
0:35:15 > 0:35:18Surprisingly, Plant's first album with the band was a collection
0:35:18 > 0:35:24of mostly blues and folk remakes, more important intimate songs from the soundtrack of his own life.
0:35:24 > 0:35:28The centrepiece of which was a cover of the Tim Buckley classic, Song To The Siren.
0:35:28 > 0:35:32This cover's everywhere, Zeppelin I was Otis Rush.
0:35:32 > 0:35:37Led Zeppelin II was Willie Dixon.
0:35:39 > 0:35:46I guess with Dreamland I really wanted to touch that psychedelic nerve.
0:35:46 > 0:35:48# Did I dream
0:35:50 > 0:35:52# You dreamed about me
0:35:55 > 0:35:58# Were you hare
0:35:58 > 0:35:59# And I was fox
0:36:02 > 0:36:09# Now my foolish boat is leaning
0:36:12 > 0:36:16# Broken lovelorn on your rocks. #
0:36:18 > 0:36:21To visit Song To The Siren, some songs you think you can't touch.
0:36:21 > 0:36:23That particular song is spectacular.
0:36:27 > 0:36:29I just saw so much of myself in there.
0:36:31 > 0:36:35As I do in quite a lot of songs that I sing of other people's.
0:36:35 > 0:36:38Mostly I've got to be in awe of the lyric.
0:36:42 > 0:36:45I've got to think that I can't match that.
0:36:46 > 0:36:51# Waiting to hold you. #
0:37:03 > 0:37:07But Plant still had a strange unshakeable sensation of his own.
0:37:07 > 0:37:11I was rockaday Johnny in the middle of it as well.
0:37:11 > 0:37:13I think...
0:37:13 > 0:37:15that...
0:37:15 > 0:37:19I didn't need to be rockaday Johnny any more.
0:37:19 > 0:37:24If we ever work again I shall definitely be playing a baritone ukulele.
0:37:28 > 0:37:33Strange sensations are often felt more acutely in strange surroundings,
0:37:33 > 0:37:37so Plant and his new band sought more exotic places to perform.
0:37:41 > 0:37:47Taking that music into Tunisia and playing at night-time with the mosque and the minaret illuminated.
0:37:50 > 0:37:55The show being opened by Lebanese speed metal bands,
0:37:55 > 0:37:58it's like the world is opening up.
0:38:03 > 0:38:09It got me further and further away from the kind of UK festival scene,
0:38:09 > 0:38:16as we know it, and more and more into playing with all those people
0:38:16 > 0:38:19who you get 45 minutes of absolute beauty.
0:38:30 > 0:38:33By now Plant was venturing far from the well-trodden track
0:38:33 > 0:38:36of the established attention-hungry rock star.
0:38:36 > 0:38:43So far it might have seen like a flight from fame, a glorious self-imposed exile.
0:38:43 > 0:38:46In 2005, along with members of Strange Sensation,
0:38:46 > 0:38:53he journeyed to Mali to play at the Festival In The Desert, the most remote music festival in the world.
0:38:55 > 0:38:58I went on a plane which was full of
0:38:58 > 0:39:00crackpots and extremists.
0:39:00 > 0:39:03There was sort of a plane that had come out of a comic,
0:39:03 > 0:39:08where we loaded up and I realised that everybody was going to the same place.
0:39:13 > 0:39:17We landed somewhere in southern Morocco,
0:39:17 > 0:39:21and then made our way with a small team from Blue Peter.
0:39:21 > 0:39:26We were doing a programme on the current educational situation in Mali.
0:39:26 > 0:39:32They had a tiny plane that they got from some Christian zealots,
0:39:32 > 0:39:35who ferried people around Africa for a sum of money.
0:39:41 > 0:39:45So we got on board, we followed a river all the way up,
0:39:45 > 0:39:50so it was desert, desert, desert, and one patch of green.
0:39:50 > 0:39:55The patch of green was where Ali Farka Toure had taken his income from
0:39:55 > 0:40:00the album he had made with Ry Cooder to some artesian wells in the desert
0:40:00 > 0:40:05and created a garden of avocados and salads and tomatoes,
0:40:05 > 0:40:09his contribution back to his people.
0:40:11 > 0:40:16We landed and made our way up towards the festival.
0:40:17 > 0:40:2260 kilometres north of Timbuktu, by no roads, nothing at all,
0:40:22 > 0:40:26just guys driving by the occasional tree that they know.
0:40:57 > 0:41:02The rhythms of the Mississippi Blues, the translike sounds of psychedelia
0:41:02 > 0:41:08and the vocal expressions of a continent could all be heard in the darkness of the desert night.
0:41:08 > 0:41:11Everything Robert Plant could ever have wished for.
0:41:24 > 0:41:29# Hey! I believe he's out of love
0:41:29 > 0:41:33# Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. #
0:41:34 > 0:41:37To play with Umu Sangare,
0:41:37 > 0:41:41an amazing singer and artist,
0:41:41 > 0:41:43just out of this world,
0:41:43 > 0:41:48for me to be able to find something in my back pocket
0:41:48 > 0:41:53that would fit in amongst all that was serendipity. It was fantastic.
0:41:56 > 0:41:59THEY PLAY "WHOLE LOTTA LOVE" ON LOCAL INSTRUMENTS
0:42:03 > 0:42:08It was like one of those huge spikes of revelation in your life
0:42:08 > 0:42:13in every respect, not just as a performer,
0:42:13 > 0:42:16but as a man.
0:42:28 > 0:42:31If the tunes of Led Zeppelin were never that far away, the rock god
0:42:31 > 0:42:36image of its ex-frontman was being buried deep in the desert sands.
0:42:36 > 0:42:42I learn every day. I learn that the rockaday Johnny thing has got to go
0:42:42 > 0:42:47a bit further back in the box, keep the lid down on it a bit.
0:42:49 > 0:42:53Look at people who change for their own stimulation.
0:42:58 > 0:43:01Look at Peter Gabriel.
0:43:01 > 0:43:06Peter reinvents on about a five-year turn around.
0:43:06 > 0:43:09MUSIC: "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel
0:43:09 > 0:43:11Look at Scott Walker.
0:43:11 > 0:43:15MUSIC: "Make It Easy On Yourself" by The Walker Brothers
0:43:17 > 0:43:20I used to open the show for the Walker Brothers when I was 15
0:43:20 > 0:43:28at Kidderminster Town Hall, you couldn't hear them for the screams of the girls and Scott was elevated.
0:43:28 > 0:43:33I'm sure there was at least nine inches between his feet and the stage.
0:43:33 > 0:43:37He just drifted through this miasma of female want,
0:43:37 > 0:43:42and meanwhile his van was being festooned with more and more lipstick
0:43:42 > 0:43:47that Bonzo and I were so pissed off we got some lipstick and did our own van.
0:43:47 > 0:43:50MUSIC: "Farmer In The City" by Scott Walker
0:43:52 > 0:43:58Then Scott moves left and right through Jacques Brel to Farmer In The City to brilliant.
0:44:00 > 0:44:05We'll make the record and never play it again and never listen to it, but he's done it.
0:44:11 > 0:44:14Two or three times I played that,
0:44:14 > 0:44:18without medical assistance, and I think it's...
0:44:18 > 0:44:19Does he care?
0:44:19 > 0:44:22Is chronology anything to do with it? Not at all.
0:44:27 > 0:44:30It used to be said that the song remains the same,
0:44:30 > 0:44:34but if Plant's music is now in a permanent state of reinvention,
0:44:34 > 0:44:36we have to seek familiarity elsewhere.
0:44:36 > 0:44:42Luckily, it seems we can always rely on the presence of those long blonde tresses.
0:44:42 > 0:44:46- You've still got the hair? - I put it on in the car park.
0:44:46 > 0:44:49MUSIC: "When The Music's Over" by The Doors
0:44:49 > 0:44:52I cancelled my subscription to the resurrection, who said that?
0:44:52 > 0:44:57Jim Morrison, it's all about that great gang, once upon time,
0:44:57 > 0:45:04when there were changes to be made and music was a catalyst for a lot of beautiful change.
0:45:08 > 0:45:12That's why sad old hippies still keep their hair long,
0:45:12 > 0:45:18because we were part of something that meant something more than just ego and income.
0:45:22 > 0:45:27Sad hold hippies will also try anything in the spirit of exploration, musical or otherwise.
0:45:27 > 0:45:33With the exception of one duet, sung with Sandy Denny in 1971,
0:45:33 > 0:45:36Plant's voice had never been entwined with that of a woman.
0:45:36 > 0:45:39Why not surprise everyone yet again,
0:45:39 > 0:45:45and see what an unlikely partnership with bluegrass star Alison Krauss might produce.
0:45:45 > 0:45:50I knew that she was a spectacular singer but I also knew that she was very delicate.
0:45:50 > 0:45:56With performing and subscribing to a part of American music I didn't really get that much.
0:45:56 > 0:46:01But we had a couple of phone calls which were very humorous,
0:46:01 > 0:46:06and I realised she was also somebody who wanted to try something else out.
0:46:07 > 0:46:11We shipped our shelves to Cleveland, Ohio, rehearsed a little bit
0:46:11 > 0:46:16with Justin and I persuaded Los Lobos to bring their Mexican instruments.
0:46:20 > 0:46:23# Black girl, black girl
0:46:23 > 0:46:26# Don't lie to me
0:46:26 > 0:46:31# Tell me where did you sleep last night. #
0:46:31 > 0:46:36If I use the word "deep", it's all for the best reasons.
0:46:36 > 0:46:38She's deep,
0:46:38 > 0:46:41is what they say down there in Tennessee.
0:46:47 > 0:46:53In November 2004, Plant and Krauss debuted their singing partnership at the Cleveland Symphony Hall
0:46:53 > 0:46:58in a tribute to Leadbelly for the rock 'n' roll Hall of Fame museum.
0:47:04 > 0:47:09It was an amazing night, because it's that thing where you suddenly
0:47:09 > 0:47:14see all of the things that you have done flying before you,
0:47:14 > 0:47:18and after you and round you like a cartoon of somebody being knocked out.
0:47:18 > 0:47:23You see the spiral of stars and exclamation marks.
0:47:23 > 0:47:31I'm next to a beautiful woman who can sing like an angel and knows exactly what she wants.
0:47:31 > 0:47:35And, we did it.
0:47:35 > 0:47:41# I'm going where the cold wind blows. #
0:47:43 > 0:47:45I thought, Jeez, what is that?
0:47:47 > 0:47:49That's got to come back again.
0:47:52 > 0:47:58# You caused to me to leave my home. #
0:47:59 > 0:48:02This serenity
0:48:02 > 0:48:08of women, it should be the collective noun for those women down there,
0:48:08 > 0:48:11a serenity, and you know damn well that's not true.
0:48:15 > 0:48:20On paper it looked like the music industry's number one nomination for the odd couple category,
0:48:20 > 0:48:26Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, the hills of the Black Country and the hills of Tennessee.
0:48:26 > 0:48:31Lemon squeezing in Louisiana, whatever next?
0:48:33 > 0:48:37# I got a woman with plenty of money
0:48:41 > 0:48:45# She got the money and I got the honey.
0:48:45 > 0:48:48She nurtured me through this thing,
0:48:48 > 0:48:51she liked the idea of my voice and hers.
0:48:51 > 0:48:58We obviously knew it worked tonally, and personality wise, the two voices really did blend great.
0:48:58 > 0:49:03But I got a lot to learn, hey presto, I was born again.
0:49:03 > 0:49:08- MAKING SOUNDS INTO MIC:- Tss! Tss! Do you hear it?
0:49:08 > 0:49:09- It's working right now.- OK.
0:49:09 > 0:49:11I want whatever she tried to get rid of.
0:49:13 > 0:49:19'It was incredibly nerve-wracking,
0:49:19 > 0:49:22because the challenge is,
0:49:22 > 0:49:25can an old dog ever learn a new trick?
0:49:34 > 0:49:37# Some sunny day, baby
0:49:37 > 0:49:39# When everything seems OK, baby
0:49:39 > 0:49:43# You'll wake up and find that you're alone
0:49:44 > 0:49:48# Cos I'll be gone Gone, gone, gone
0:49:49 > 0:49:54# Really gone Gone, gone, gone
0:49:54 > 0:49:55# Because you could be wrong. #
0:49:57 > 0:50:01Over an eight-month period, Plant, Krauss and their producer, guitarist T-Bone Burnett,
0:50:01 > 0:50:07assembled a delicate mix of country songs, lesser known R&B numbers, blues and folk,
0:50:07 > 0:50:10for what became a Grammy-gobbling album.
0:50:10 > 0:50:14Every night we discussed more and more music, and more and more and more and more,
0:50:14 > 0:50:20and the doors kept opening and CDs kept flying out and the downloads kept coming in.
0:50:23 > 0:50:24Bollocks!
0:50:24 > 0:50:28Because I knew about American music but I didn't know about mountain music.
0:50:28 > 0:50:36# Oh sister, let's go down Down to the river to pray... #
0:50:36 > 0:50:38I didn't know about the hills of Tennessee,
0:50:38 > 0:50:42about the whole twang and the sourness of their harmonies.
0:50:42 > 0:50:45# But I don't worry, honey
0:50:45 > 0:50:49# Let them say what they will
0:50:51 > 0:50:56# Come on and stick with me baby
0:50:58 > 0:51:01# We'll find a way. #
0:51:01 > 0:51:06- OVER-THE TOP SOUTHERN US ACCENTS: - You did a real good job. - And I love you, honey.
0:51:06 > 0:51:09Will you work with me again?
0:51:09 > 0:51:14No sooner had a country star Robert Plant arrived in the autumn of 2007,
0:51:14 > 0:51:19than Led Zeppelin reformed for a one-off tribute concert to mark the passing
0:51:19 > 0:51:22of Atlantic Records' Ahmet Ertegun in December.
0:51:22 > 0:51:25The world now had many Plants to contend with.
0:51:25 > 0:51:28For me, it's kind of like that Christmas feeling.
0:51:28 > 0:51:33Santa Claus is coming and you're like a child waiting for the biggest present
0:51:33 > 0:51:36you have ever waited for in your whole life.
0:51:39 > 0:51:41Having not played publicly for over two decades,
0:51:41 > 0:51:48Zeppelin took to the stage, albeit without John Bonham, but behind the drums sat his only son, Jason.
0:51:48 > 0:51:52This was one of the most coveted tickets in rock history.
0:51:52 > 0:51:56# Eyes that shine burning red... #
0:52:08 > 0:52:10Zeppelin stormed the O2,
0:52:10 > 0:52:14and the 64,000 question started to rear its ugly head again.
0:52:14 > 0:52:19Robert Plant came here thinking we were gonna ask him the same question everyone is asking,
0:52:19 > 0:52:21but we're gonna ask him anyway.
0:52:21 > 0:52:24Can we dim the lights and have some appropriate music.
0:52:24 > 0:52:25MUSIC: Theme from "Mastermind"
0:52:25 > 0:52:28Thank you very much. Name Robert Plant, occupation, rock God.
0:52:28 > 0:52:30Are Led Zeppelin going to go on tour?
0:52:30 > 0:52:32Steve Bull is now the manager of Stafford Rangers.
0:52:32 > 0:52:35His first home game is on Saturday. Please turn up.
0:52:35 > 0:52:40They say there's going to be 3,000 or 4,000 and he's buying a striker.
0:52:40 > 0:52:46- Is that a yes or a no? - I feel a funny feeling coming on!
0:52:46 > 0:52:49That was a "no".
0:52:49 > 0:52:54You should have been a politician with the inability to answer a direct question.
0:52:59 > 0:53:04Plant and Alison Krauss have yet to repeat their run away success together.
0:53:04 > 0:53:08Krauss returned to her bluegrass roots, but Plant was on a roll.
0:53:08 > 0:53:11He returned to Tennessee and created an entirely new band.
0:53:11 > 0:53:15This time in collaboration with Emmylou Harris's guitarist,
0:53:15 > 0:53:18Buddy Miller and featuring guest singer/songwriter, Pattie Griffin.
0:53:18 > 0:53:22Plant christened them The Band of Joy.
0:53:22 > 0:53:26His nod to a pre-Led Zeppelin past while restlessly moving on...again.
0:53:29 > 0:53:36Two hours ago when I started talking to you, I said we were in it, shit or bust.
0:53:36 > 0:53:40The Band of Joy was no matter what we believed.
0:53:40 > 0:53:47Therefore, we played accordingly, with great extravagance and aplomb and indulge and "baaaah"!
0:53:47 > 0:53:51I really felt, as we started to develop this record,
0:53:51 > 0:53:55in a more mature way I was doing the same thing again in a way.
0:53:55 > 0:53:59# Tonight you will be mine
0:54:04 > 0:54:10# Tonight the monkey dies. #
0:54:12 > 0:54:17The subtlety in this is the counterpoint
0:54:17 > 0:54:22to the bravado in the original Band of Joy.
0:54:22 > 0:54:26It's the same deal, but it's a bit more internal.
0:54:38 > 0:54:42Since going to Tennessee, I've heard the most spectacular songwriters,
0:54:42 > 0:54:48and I was kind of fishing out beautiful little pieces of other people's work,
0:54:48 > 0:54:54and twisting them around a bit with such remarkable musical company.
0:54:54 > 0:55:01# Tonight the monkey dies. #
0:55:01 > 0:55:05I played the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival twice in the last three years.
0:55:05 > 0:55:10A three-day event which is open to everyone.
0:55:10 > 0:55:13They say 750,000 people move through it.
0:55:13 > 0:55:18There are five stages and you have pure bluegrass, country,
0:55:18 > 0:55:23rockabilly, singer-songwriters, it's just amazing.
0:55:23 > 0:55:26In the middle of it all stands Ralph Stanley singing, Oh Death.
0:55:26 > 0:55:32You go, how did I miss that for all those years? It's amazing.
0:55:32 > 0:55:39# Oh, death
0:55:41 > 0:55:48# Whoa, death
0:55:48 > 0:55:55# Won't you spare me over to another year... #
0:55:56 > 0:55:5930 years ago, Led Zeppelin crashed and burned.
0:55:59 > 0:56:04Since then Robert Plant has wrestled the singular image of a stage straddling rock god
0:56:04 > 0:56:09to emerge as a man of many selves, hell bent on exploring all of them.
0:56:11 > 0:56:15Now it has to be right, and right in a very casual and easy way.
0:56:15 > 0:56:20Meanwhile that over there was fine, but this is serious stuff.
0:56:20 > 0:56:23I'm pretty intense,
0:56:23 > 0:56:30so I have to unhitch some of that stuff and get it spot on in 2010.
0:56:34 > 0:56:39When I was a kid I thought that Robert Johnson had the whole world sewn up with the lyrics,
0:56:39 > 0:56:43the kind of sexual innuendo and stuff like that, because it was a hoot,
0:56:43 > 0:56:49it was funny but very clever. It was fine, all fine, all fine, all fine,
0:56:49 > 0:56:54but to actually make those work later in life, I think you have
0:56:54 > 0:57:00to either have to be prepared to go into character, or in many respects, shelve it.
0:57:04 > 0:57:08My grandfather was a musician, my great-grandfather was a musician.
0:57:08 > 0:57:12They formed really important Black Country brass bands.
0:57:12 > 0:57:18Which had posh names, but were usually known as the Dudley Port Drinking Band.
0:57:18 > 0:57:21It goes on and on and on.
0:57:21 > 0:57:24The only difference was they were playing Sousa marches,
0:57:24 > 0:57:26and there was no squeeze my lemon involved, you know.
0:57:26 > 0:57:31The only thing they had to change was their tunics as their portage increased.
0:57:31 > 0:57:36We have to make sure we change our mind enough to make it worthwhile.
0:57:41 > 0:57:43# Ah-ah
0:57:45 > 0:57:48- # Ah-ah CROWD:- # Ah-ah
0:57:48 > 0:57:50# Ah-ah
0:57:50 > 0:57:51# Ah-ah
0:57:51 > 0:57:53# Ahhhhh... #
0:57:56 > 0:58:00Whether it's an incredibly dreadful performance at Live Aid,
0:58:00 > 0:58:06or an evening in Mali, or country music awards on CMT,
0:58:06 > 0:58:08whatever it is they are moments.
0:58:08 > 0:58:12If I like the idea of it and I can talk myself into these positions,
0:58:12 > 0:58:15I'm going to do it because it's just crazy.
0:58:16 > 0:58:18How many mes are there?
0:58:30 > 0:58:32Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:32 > 0:58:34E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk