Robert Plant
Encyclopedia : R : RO : ROB : Robert Plant
Robert Anthony Plant (born August 20 1948, West Bromwich, West Midlands) is an English rock rock singer, most famous for his membership in the rock band Led Zeppelin. He is known for his powerful style, often mystical lyrics, and wide vocal range.
Early Career
Although born in West Bromwich, Plant actually grew up in Stourbridge, formerly Worcestershire, now part of the borough of Dudley. He left school in his early teens and developed a strong passion for the blues, abandoning a potentially promising career as a chartered accountant to become part of the Midlands blues scene. He sang with a variety of bands including The Crawling King Snakes, which brought him into contact with drummer John Bonham. They both went on to play in the Band of Joy, merging blues with newer psychedelic trends. Though his early career met with no commercial success, word quickly spread about the "young guy with the powerful voice".Led Zeppelin
In 1968 guitarist Jimmy Page was in search of a lead singer for his new band and met Plant after being turned down by his first choice, Terry Reid, who referred him to a show at a nightclub where Plant was singing in a band which included drummer John Bonham. Plant and Page immediately hit it off with a shared musical passion and after Plant joined the band, they began their powerful writing collaboration with reworkings of earlier blues songs. Plant brought along John Bonham, and along with Jimmy Page's friend John Paul Jones, Led Zeppelin was formed in 1968. Their self-titled debut album hit the charts in 1969 and is widely credited as a catalyst for the heavy metal genre.
A well-read individual, Plant was influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien, which inspired some lyrics on early Led Zeppelin albums, most notably the hit "Ramble On" from the 1969 album, Led Zeppelin II (He named his dog "Strider"), and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The passion for diverse musical experiences drove Plant and Page to explore the African continent, specifically Morocco, which most evidently culminated in the classic track, "Kashmir." They both revisited these influences during their reunion album in 1994. In his solo career, Plant again tapped from these influences many times, most notably in the 2002 album, Dreamland.
One of Plant's most famous successes came with the track, "Stairway to Heaven", an epic fantasy rock ballad that draws influence from folk, blues, Celtic traditional music and hard rock among other genres. While never released as a single, the song has topped charts as the greatest song of all time on various polls around the world. Even though most of the lyrics of the song were written on the spot and have been spread through bootlegs, various groups have claimed that the song contained satanic messages that can be heard when it is played backwards. None of these groups has shown anything substantial to their claims.
Plant enjoyed great success with the band throughout the 1970s, and at one point during the height of his hubris said to a reporter "I am the Golden God!" This hubris was cut short when Plant and wife Maureen were seriously injured in a car crash in Rhodes, Greece on August 4, 1975. This halted production of Led Zeppelin's seventh album Presence for a few months while he recovered, and forced the band to cancel the remaining tour dates for the year. Things also took a turn for the worse in 1977, when his oldest son Karac died of a stomach infection. Karac's death later inspired him to write the song "All My Love" in tribute, featured on Led Zeppelin's final studio LP, 1979's In Through the Out Door. These tragic incidents seemed to foster break-up rumors and rumors that the band was involved with black magic and the occult.
Solo career
After the band's breakup following the sudden death of drummer John Bonham in 1980, Plant pursued a successful solo career beginning with his first solo album, "Pictures at Eleven" in 1982. Popular tracks from this period include "Big Log" (1983), "Tall Cool One" (1988) and "I Believe," another song written for and dedicated to his late son, Karac.(1993). In 1984, Plant formed a short-lived all-star group with Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck called , who had a Top Ten hit with a remake of the Phil Phillips' tune, "Sea of Love". Plant avoided performing Led Zeppelin songs through much of this period.On rare occasion, Plant performed with both surviving members of Led Zeppelin: In 1985 for Live Aid (with Phil Collins on drums), 1988 for Atlantic Records 40th anniversary, and in 1995 when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the last two with Bonham's son Jason filling in on drums. Additionally, Plant, Jones, and Page attended - and later performed at - Jason's wedding in 1990.
Through the 1980s and 1990s, Plant co-wrote three solo albums with keyboardist/songwriter Phil Johnstone. "Now and Zen" (1988), "Manic Nirvana" (1990) and "Fate of Nations" (1993) all graced the Plant/Johnstone partnership. It was Johnstone who talked Plant into playing Zeppelin songs in his live shows, something Plant had resisted, not wanting to be forever known as "the former Led Zeppelin vocalist." Plant first collaborated with Jimmy Page post-Zeppelin in the studio on the 1988 Page solo effort, "Outrider." He later collaborated with Page on the 1998 album, Walking Into Clarksdale, which features all original material from the pair, a first since the 1980 break-up of Led Zeppelin.
In 2002, with his then newly-formed band Strange Sensation, Plant released a widely acclaimed collection of mostly blues and folk remakes, Dreamland. Contrasting with this lush collection of - often relatively obscure - remakes, the second album with Strange Sensation Mighty Rearranger (2005), contains new, original songs. Both have received some of the most favorable reviews of Plant's solo career.
Today, in addition to his post-Zeppelin work, Plant continues occasional collaborations with his former bandmate Jimmy Page. Plant still actively tours, most recently in Europe, Fall 2005 with Strange Sensation. His sets typically include recent solo material and plenty of Led Zeppelin favorites, often with new and expanded arrangements.
A passionate football fan, Plant supports Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C.
Vocals and Stage Persona
Robert Plant is an alto and his powerful, high-pitched, wailing vocals, famously showcased in many Led Zeppelin songs such as Communication Breakdown, Dazed and Confused, and Whole Lotta Love, helped to define what would become the vocal style of the hard rock singer, influencing other rock frontmen such as Axl Rose, Steven Tyler, and Brian Johnson. This singing method is characterized in Plant by a slightly higher than average male voice and an aggressive, rough timbre. His performance in the 1969 song Communication Breakdown is particularly intense and is one of the first modern examples of the punk vocal style #redirect . His more relaxed and tender verses followed by an explosive chorus in songs such as Thank You, Ramble On, and Stairway to Heaven, helped to establish the rock ballad format.
Plant is also recognized for his lyrical improvisation in Led Zeppelin's live performances, often singing verses previously unheard on studio recordings. One of the most famous Led Zeppelin musical devices involves Plant's vocal mimicking of bandmate Jimmy Page's guitar effects. This can be heard in the songs How Many More Times, Dazed and Confused, You Shook Me, and Sick Again. His lyrics are often mystical, philosophical, and spiritual, referring to events in classical and Norse mythology, as in the song No Quarter, which refers to the god Thor, and the Immigrant Song, which refers to Valhalla, and Viking conquests. The Rain Song contains allusions to various pagan rituals. Some songs like Battle of Evermore and Ramble On contain verses referencing J. R. R. Tolkien's the Lord of the Rings, of which Plant is a huge fan. Lyrics like these led to the popularization of associating Led Zeppelin, and rock and roll in general, with pagan mythology (i.e. 'rock gods'). Plant also used more traditional blues-based lyrics dealing primarily with sex and drugs, as in Dazed and Confused, The Lemon Song, Trampled Underfoot and Black Dog.
On stage, Plant was particularly active in live performances for a frontman in the late sixties, often dancing, jumping, snapping his fingers, clapping, making emphatic gestures to emphasize a lyric or cymbal crash, throwing back his head, or placing his hands on his hips. He wore elaborate, colorful clothing while in Led Zeppelin, particularly once the band's fame peaked in the mid seventies.
Solo discography
- Pictures at Eleven (1982)
- The Principle of Moments (1983)
- (1984), with Jimmy Page
- Shaken 'n' Stirred (1985)
- Now and Zen (1988)
- Manic Nirvana (1990)
- Fate of Nations (1993)
- The Wayne's World 2 Soundtrack (1993), (1 track)
- (1994), as Page and Plant
- Walking into Clarksdale (1998), as Page and Plant
- Dreamland (2002)
- Sixty Six to Timbuktu (2003) Best Of
- Mighty Rearranger (2005), with Strange Sensation
External links
- [Official Robert Plant Homepage]
- [Interview with Robert Plant]
- [Robert Plant's Altsounds.com Profile]
- [Robert Plant's live concert]
- [Robert Plant at Cornbury Music Festival UK July 2006]
- [Phil Johnstone]
| Led Zeppelin |
|---|
| Jimmy Page · Robert Plant · John Paul Jones · John Bonham |
| Discography |
| Studio Albums: Led Zeppelin · II · III ·
(IV) · Houses of the Holy · Physical Graffiti · Presence · In Through the Out Door · Coda
Live Albums: The Song Remains the Same · BBC Sessions · How the West Was Won Compilations: Box Set · Profiled · Remasters · Box Set 2 · Complete Studio Recordings · ' · ' |
| Films |
| The Song Remains the Same · Led Zeppelin DVD |
| Other |
| Peter Grant · Richard Cole · Swan Song Records · The Yardbirds · XYZ · The Firm · Page and Plant Categories: ∙ |
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.