A cross-genre collaboration on a recording project isn't exactly what you'd call news. But sometimes "who's collaborating with whom" can make you sit up and take notice.

Try to magine what it would sound like if one of hard rock's most distinctive voices combined with one of the best known in contemporary bluegrass. Apparently you won't have to use your imagination for very long.

According to Nashville newspaper, The Tennessean's celebrity columnist, Robert Plant (ex-Led Zeppelin) and bluegrass diva Alison Krauss are the collaborators in question. After Plant was spotted at several "see and be seen" Nashville restaurants and clubs in recent days, columnist Beverly Keel started sniffing around and discovered that the seemingly unlikely pair have been in the studio, recording an album of duets under the watchful ear of producer T Bone Burnett. Release date for the album has yet to be announced.

The two have recently become label-mates, as Rounder Records Group has just released Plant's first ever live performance DVD, Robert Plant and The Strange Sensation, from a 2005 PBS Soundstage production.

Hey, it's just one more reason they call Nashville the Music City!

_{Robert Plant photo by Ken Regan, courtesy Rhino Media
Alison Krauss album cover image courtesy Rounder Records}