The Bottom Line
I get it that Robert Plant has exited the hard rock phase of his career, but it's a little hard to figure out where he's trying to go next. His latest solo album, Band of Joy really doesn't offer much in the way of clues.
Band of Joy is available on CD, vinyl (on 10/26/10) and MP3.
Pros
- Patty Griffin's voice blends well with Plant's (though not as well as Alison Krauss's)
Cons
- It's hard to know where this album was trying to go, and whether it got there
Description
- Release date 9/14/10, Rounder Records; available on CD, vinyl and MP3
- Produced by Robert Plant and Buddy Miller
- Robert Plant - lead vocals; Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller - vocals, guitar
- Darrell Scott - strings, accordion; Marco Giovion - percussion; Byron House - bass
Guide Review - Robert Plant - 'Band of Joy'
Prior to 2010, the Birmingham, England-based band, Band of Joy had four incarnations, three of which included Robert Plant as lead vocalist, and one of which included drummer John Bonham. The first three versions of the band (the Plant years) existed from 1965-68. The second (without Plant, who had, like Bonham, moved on to bigger and better things with Led Zeppelin) lasted from 1977-83.
The original Band of Joy played soul and blues, the music that folks in the Birmingham area were into in the mid-60s. The musical style of the 2010 version of the band is much harder to pin down, even after repeatedly listening to their self-titled debut album.
I've gotten quite used to classic rock artists branching off into other areas as they get closer to the end of their careers than they were 30 or 40 years ago -- artists like Roger Waters, Paul McCartney and Sting with their ventures in classical music, Rod Stewart with his transition to soft pop standards, Ritchie Blackmore leaping from "Smoke on the Water" to medieval minstrel music.
In the deft hands of producer T Bone Burnett, Plant successfully made the break from hard rock via his 2007 pairing with Alison Krauss for their Raising Sand album. Each artist jumped genre and landed in a very happy place somewhere between the two. Sadly, Band of Joy doesn't come anywhere close to Plant's last collaboration.
This is Not Your Father's Robert Plant
In all fairness, this 2010 collaboration is of a different kind. Whereas Plant and Krauss shared lead and harmony vocals, Band of Joy's other vocalists (Patty Griffin and Buddy Miller) are strictly backup singers, used sparingly and very much in the background. That alone disqualifies any direct comparisons between the two albums.The songs Plant chose to cover and the way he chose to cover them (he and Miller co-produced the album) are all over the board, with the song and the performance style often at odds. Traditional folk and bluegrass fare gets '50s pop and rockabilly treatment. On a couple of tracks, there's an inexplicable attempt to sound country, on songs that are not.
I don't have any quarrel with the songs selected. They come from some A-list songwriters like Richard and Linda Thompson, Louie Perez and David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, and Townes Van Zandt. It is the arrangements that leave me scratching my head.
I have long been a Led Zeppelin fan, but I heartily support Plant's stated desire to not do that anymore (nor the hard rock of his subsequent solo career.) Raising Sand proved that he can successfully avoid genre typecasting. Band of Joy is likewise not your father's Robert Plant, but it isn't at all clear to me what it is.
