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