Audio By Carbonatix
Robert Plant raised a lot more than sand on that 2007 album with Alison Krauss, one of the very few Americana albums to go platinum since O Brother, Where Art Thou? He also raised five Grammys in February 2009 — Raising Sand was released too late to make the ’08 awards — and resurrected a solo career that had been overshadowed by a levee-breaking flood of new/reissued Led Zeppelin product and that group’s November 2007 reunion concert at London’s O2 Arena. Not surprisingly, Plant has decided to extend his rootsy honeymoon with both a new group and album named after his and John Bonham’s pre-Zep rockers, Band of Joy. Released in September, the album includes hillbilly-gospel standard “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down,” Los Lobos’ “Angel Band,” and two from Minneapolis slowcore trio Low’s 2005 LP, The Great Destroyer — with a couple of key substitutions: A-list Nashville utility man Buddy Miller in for Sand/O Brother‘s T-Bone Burnett as producer and bandleader and flaming-red Austin singer/songwriter Patty Griffin as Plant’s main female foil.
