Artist: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
Album: Raising Sand
Label: Rounder Records
Year: 2007
Reviewed By: Woodstock Slim
When
Danie told me that Plant had a new album out and it was with Alison
Krauss I nearly fell over backwards. I knew instantly that it was going
to be a good one. How great it was going to be I had no idea of course.
I knew I'd like it, I guess. Last come back record I heard from Plant
was the the Honey Drippers and that pretty much blew my mind, I
was only 17 when I heard it all those years ago. My sister swapped it
for cigarette money. I still only have the cover of it in my record box.
The
Raising Sand sound is predominantly Rockabilly, Bluesy and Twangs all
the way through. "It's a real heavy record" like Miles Davis would say.
Indeed its heavy, ponderous and thick like mud and molasses. Warm like
broth. I can't imagine why the two became a team but it was a great
combination. T-Bone Burnett (Brother where art thou and Walk The Line)
created what I think they were feeling and envisioned with this union.
Raising Sand was. T-Bone also chose some of the songs written by his
wife, Sam Phillips.
So even though Burnett has assembled a crack
acoustic support unit to play the choice material he's selected from
Gene Clark, Sam Phillips, Townes Van Zandt, Mel Tillis, Tom Waits and
the Everly Brothers. The covers were no less than
standard but how mind blowing did they register at the hand T-Bone,
phoar! Someone said that Raising Sand was slow burning which I totally
agree with, with its up tempo here and there and also the slower
burning ponderous bits it makes for a full lush album that you can
listen to over an over.
The instrumentalists include avant garde
experimentalist Marc Ribot on electric guitar, banjo and Dobro, old
time music maven Mike Seeger on auto-harp, and legendary string man
Norman Blake on acoustic guitar. The pair respectfully sing around each
other and lend a lot of space for each other to express themselves. It
never turns into a cacophony of voices trying to compete for the mike
or centre stage and I thought that was really cool about Raising Sand.
If you put great people together you get a great album. This will stand
the test of time. It goes all
over the place and covers great spaces in time.