RE: ROBERT PLANT NINE LIVES BOX SET

["fireclown fabulosa" <fyrclwn@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

thought this was an interesting article..........

CRITICAL MASS:  FREAK OF NATURE
Paul Martin

Today sees the release of 9 Lives, a comprehensive boxed set that includes 
all nine of Robert Plant~Rs solo albums, remastered and expanded with bonus 
tracks, and a DVD with 20 of Plant~Rs videos, a 60-minute film covering his 
post-Led Zeppelin career and interviews with collaborators and admirers like 
Phil Collins, Tori Amos, former Atlantic Records president Ahmet Etregun and 
tennis great John McEnroe. It~Rs from Rhino, and the suggested retail price 
is $ 99. 98 (you~Rll probably find it for about $ 80 ), and as usual with 
Rhino the package is impressive. It includes a 60-page booklet with photos 
and an overview essay as well as liner notes for each album written by 
distinguished British journalist (not rock critic ) Ed Vulliamy.

For the enthusiast, this sort of thing is always fun. If you care about a 
particular artist, the never-beforeavailable alternate tracks are more than 
just interesting, they can be revelatory. The demographic for such a set is 
really the people who already own ~W or used to own ~W one or more of the 
Plant solo records and who don~Rt consider the spending of $ 100 (or $ 80 ) 
to fill out their music collection extravagant. So chances are, if you~Rre 
reading this column, your interest in Plant may exceed my own. Before 
listening to this set I was only casually acquainted with Plant~Rs solo work.

But anyone who listens to rock ~Rn~R roll seriously has some sort of feelings 
about Plant; aside from Mick Jagger and / or Keith Richards, he~Rs done more 
to cement the idea of the archetypal rock star in the collective 
consciousness than any other figure.

A few years ago at the South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin, Texas, 
I heard veteran journalist Gina Arnold describe an interview she conducted 
with Plant in the early 1970 s. Three people were in the hotel room that day 
~W Plant, Arnold and Plant~Rs publicist. The protocol was such that the 
journalist was not to address the rock star directly, though he was sitting 
just a few feet away. She was to ask the publicist, who would convey the 
question to Plant, who might or might not deign to answer the question.

It~Rs a funny story, and one which I~Rm not sure Plant should be embarrassed 
about. We have gotten so casual these days, with T-shirts calling Satan out 
for a punk and evangelical leaders~R insistence on close personal 
relationships with Jesus, that the idea of showing a little deference toward 
one~Rs betters has acquired some merit. The singularity of Plant~Rs gift is 
such to suggest that he~Rs been favored by the supernatural ~W maybe the devil 
caressed his throat at the crossroads on some hot August night.

Or maybe, as the soon-tobe-released greatest movie ever made, Tenacious D 
and the Pick of Destiny, suggests, the devil isn~Rt lurking in the graveyard 
with his cap brim pulled down low, but is that little voice in our hearts 
telling us it~Rs OK to have that second doughnut or to spend hours playing 
solitaire at our workstation. (Maybe the devil is extravagant with his 
favors, understanding how little most of us would take. )

Either way, talent commands accommodation; and Plant~Rs freak-of-nature voice 
~W the scream of a razor-shredded soul ~W inspires awe. And shock. It always 
has, since first heard back in the 1960 s when Plant ~W a provincial from the 
Welsh borderlands ~W was discovered moaning the blues by a session guitarist 
named Jimmy Page and his bassist sidekick, John Paul Jones. With the 
Yardbirds in tatters, they were looking to start a new group, and their 
first choice for a singer, Terry Reid, had turned them down.

As a bonus, the Plant kid knew a drummer named John Bonham.

Keith Moon gave them the name ~Slead zeppelin~T as a joke ~W it was how John 
Entwhistle described a bad gig. Peter Grant, the new group~Rs manager, had 
them drop the ~Sa~T from the spelling, so people wouldn~Rt go around talking 
about ~Sleed zeppelin.~T Cue the bombast.

Sure, there~Rs a lot about Led Zeppelin to make you sad: those trousers and 
that hair. The self-indulgent dippiness of The Song Remains the Same. All 
that Aleister Crowley yellow-eyed devil nonsense. The whiff of ~Srock 
aristocracy~T that attached to them (and expedited the punk counterrevolution 
). Their wholesale looting of blues lyrics. The irredeemable silliness of 
some of their Tolkien-influenced ballads. The sullen persistence of 
~SStairway to Heaven.~T The fact they licensed ~SRock and Roll~T to Cadillac.

Would Behind the Music exist if not for the infamous ~Sshark incident~T that 
took place in Seattle~Rs Edgewater Inn during the band~Rs 1969 tour ? (The 
story ~W which can~Rt be repeated here ~W is basically true. But it was a red 
snapper, not a mud shark, that band manager Richard Cole creatively 
employed. )

And there is a kind of sneering artificiality that attends most of Plant~Rs 
mojo hoodoo vocal gymnastics with the Zep. A lot of hard-core Led Zep fans 
consider bare-chested banty Plant ~W ~S~RBert,~T they often call him ~W the 
band~Rs weakest musical link. Those boys (it~Rs always the boys who diss 
Plant, the little girls understand ) like guitars and depth charge drumming. 
Androgynous rock gods strutting about under yards of fluffy hair make them 
nervous.

We might agree with that assessment had Plant~Rs career ended with the 
shutting down of Led Zeppelin after the death of Bonham in 1980. Because as 
copiously talented as he was, he was a bit ridiculous. (We all were, back 
then, but most of us can hide away our high school yearbooks and employ a 
Rovian strategy of denial. )

Bonham~Rs death is said to have hit Plant particularly hard, as he~Rd known 
him the longest. When he re-emerged in 1982 with Pictures at 11 he sounded 
cautious, like he meant to re-create the Zeppelin sound with guitarist 
Robbie Blunt and drummer ~W on six of the eight tracks ~W Phil Collins. 
Actually, the fact that Blunt is no Jimmy Page works in the album~Rs favor. 
There~Rs a lean economy to his playing that supports, rather than competes 
with, Plant~Rs voodoo shiver shriek. And think what you will about Collins, 
he was a sensitive and darkly dramatic drummer back in 1982.

The second album, 1983 ~Rs The Principle of Moments, made more commercial 
noise even as it revealed a pleasant eclecticism in Plant~Rs taste. ~SBig Log~T 
was an atmospheric single and ~SIn the Mood~T was a simple, infectious piece 
of old-school R&B. Blunt~Rs guitar work was occasionally sublimated by Jezz 
Woodroffe~Rs keyboard textures, while Collins again returned for most of the 
drum work (Jethro Tull~Rs Barriemore Barlow handled a couple of cuts ).

Plant re-teamed with Page and a slew of other well-known musicians, 
including Blunt, Jeff Beck and keyboardist Paul Shaffer, in 1984 for The 
Honeydrippers, Volume One, the only recorded product of a side project that 
had been extant almost since the end of Zeppelin. Despite an obvious 
affection for straight-ahead R&B material, Plant~Rs performance on the old 
Phil Phillips tune ~SSea of Love~T ~W a top 10 hit for the band ~W marks an 
artistic low, as his mannered performance is nearly risible.

Shaken ~Rn~R Stirred (1985 ) was even more a stylistic departure from the 
Zeppelin formula as it incorporated jazz and New Wave elements into Plant~Rs 
sound, with drummer Richie Hayward from Little Feat supplying electronic 
drums. But the album sold poorly, sparking rumors of an imminent Zeppelin 
reunion. Instead, Plant took a couple of years off.

When he returned with 1988 ~Rs Now & Zen he overtly embraced his history, 
enlisting Page on the hit ~STall Cool One~T and elsewhere featuring samples 
from Zeppelin songs. Phil Johnstone took over on keyboards and emerged as 
Plant~Rs prime collaborator, co-writing eight of the songs. This is the Plant 
solo record that sounds most like his work with Led Zeppelin.

Manic Nirvana (1990 ) continued the post-Zeppelin motif, and on 1993 ~Rs Fate 
of Nations, Plant even name-checked Page on the hit ~SCalling to You.~T The 
old Page and Plant collaboration proved a sturdy engine through the 1990 s 
as evidenced by the No Quarter CD and concert and the 1998 studio CD, 
Walking Into Clarksdale (neither of these Plant-Page collaborations is 
included in the boxed set ).

In 2002, Plant released Dreamland, a project consisting mostly of cover 
tunes ~W including Bob Dylan~Rs ~SOne More Cup of Coffee,~T Bukka White~Rs ~SFunny 
in My Mind (I Believe I~Rm Fixin ~R to Die )~T and Tim Buckley~Rs ~SSong to the 
Siren.~T

Mighty Rearranger, the 2005 disc Plant recorded with his new band, Strange 
Sensation, rounds out the package.

Taken as a whole, Plant~Rs solo career is impressive if arguably only a 
footnote to the monumental career of Led Zeppelin. But listening to this 
stuff with rested ears, it~Rs not difficult to appreciate his willingness to 
explore and experiment with rhythms and textures ~W the chromatics and 
textures of Arabic, Moroccan, West African and Indian music inform his work 
as surely as the blues and R&B. And his voice is still a magnificent, 
powerful and even versatile instrument. He shows it off too much for some 
tastes, but such self-indulgence may be a rightful prerogative of the 
demigod.