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From a home in England\u2019s West Midlands, to Knebworth and Live Aid with Led Zep and back, via fame, fortune, tragedy and musical resurrection \u2013 ROBERT PLANT<\/b><\/span>\u2019s come full circle. A new album with local heroes Saving Grace exemplifies his hard rock apostasy, the reason he\u2019d rather worship Nora Brown than hang with Axl Rose. And if all else fails? \u201cI\u2019ll just be an Elvis impersonator!\u201d he tells KEITH CAMERON<\/b><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-main” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”||||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_orientation=”center” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Photography by TOM OLDHAM<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/1-3.jpg” title_text=”1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Travelling light: Robert Plant, packed and ready for his next adventure, Theatre De Verdure, St Malo, July 10, 2025.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n THERE\u2019S A GAGGLE OF POTENTIAL customers outside Stanton\u2019s Music Shop in Dudley, doubtless tempted by the window display\u2019s promise of treats within. How about that Ultra 101 transistor radio? The Ekco radiogram? Maybe even a Pye television? More likely the younger eyes are on the latest 7-inch format 45rpm gramophone records, or perhaps the bargain-priced hit-packed 10-inch Stars Of Six Five Special<\/i>, featuring Britain\u2019s premier class of 1957 rock\u2019n\u2019rollers: Tommy Steele, wild man Wee Willie Harris, and skiffle king Lonnie Donegan with Diggin\u2019 My Potatoes.<\/p>\n Welcome to the West Midlands time machine. Opened in 1895, Stanton\u2019s late Georgian townhouse was demolished in 1959, but it lives again in 2025 as part of the Black Country Living Museum. Established to honour the area\u2019s considerable industrial heritage and bring economic and spiritual renewal in the wake of its decline, the BCLM has included Stanton\u2019s in its recreation of a typical post-war town centre from the region. Here, 10 minutes from its original location, sited next door to a branch of the West Bromwich Building Society and Brierley Hill\u2019s legendary pork butcher Marsh & Baxter, Stanton\u2019s attracts visitors anew.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/1_1.jpg” title_text=”1_1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n One such is sat across the counter from MOJO, while a party of curious local school children peer at him through the glass door.<\/p>\n \u201cYou could play a gig in here,\u201d says Robert Plant, marvelling at the shop\u2019s perfect acoustics. Black Country born, raised and still only a few miles adjacent \u2013 in rural Worcestershire \u2013 if not strictly resident, Plant remembers a Stanton\u2019s on Castle Street, albeit he was more intimately acquainted with the new building which replaced the original in May 1961 with an opening ceremony featuring Frankie Vaughan. The design of Stanton\u2019s Mk 2 incorporated the new decade\u2019s boxy modernist features, a recessed entrance overhang affording courting couples a measure of after-hours seclusion. \u201cIt was a place where you could pledge eternal love to your future ex-wife,\u201d smiles Plant. \u201cWhich I did, and she still enjoys the benefits!\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/2-4.jpg” title_text=”2″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Plenty of neck: Plant deep within the \u201cunearthly condition\u201d that was peak Led Zeppelin, 1975.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n AT PLANT\u2019S BEHEST WE MEET HIM IN THE BLACK Country bosom, because it\u2019s the place that gave him life and to which he always returns, most recently 12 years ago when he called time on an 18-month period living in Austin with erstwhile vocal and romantic partner Patty Griffin. Plant\u2019s musical travelogue speaks to his lusts for life and discovery: the monumentalist rock fusion blueprints of Led Zeppelin; his synth-curious solo \u201980s then the \u201990s rapprochement with Zep\u2019s Jimmy Page; the global roots manoeuvring of his \u201900s combo Strange Sensation and its subsequent Afro-trance sibling Sensational Space Shifters; his Americana-scented blues-folk excavations with Band Of Joy; and the hugely successful twin forays into bluegrass harmony with Alison Krauss. Yet however yonder he goes, it seems Robert Plant can only resist for so long the proximity of the Welsh borders, or the lure of a freshly poured pint, possibly while watching his beloved Wolverhampton Wanderers FC. <\/p>\n As the mighty rearranger drains his pre-interview coffee, MOJO recalls a decades-distant Black Country pub crawl which began in Kidderminster, near Plant\u2019s current abode, and thence staggered through Stourbridge into deepest Dudley, including a visit to the Bull & Bladder, the legendary Batham\u2019s brewery tap in Brierley Hill. Plant\u2019s eyes gleam. \u201cYou went on a Black Country beer trail? That\u2019s us most nights!\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/2_1.jpg” title_text=”2_1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n So familiar is his face, and so deep the ties of family history, that the presence of the singer from Led Zeppelin in any of his local haunts merits little more than a grunt. \u201cAll right Rob, still doing a bit?\u201d is as starry-eyed as the regulars get. He admits to knowing some men of his vintage who\u2019ve had \u201ca nip here or a tuck there\u2026 and I think, Well, I would rather just enjoy myself.\u201d Looser of jowel yet still handsomely leonine, Plant looks comfortable in his almost 77-year-old skin, aside from the occasional painful reminder that he\u2019s a month away from a partial left knee replacement. Upon climbing out of his Jaguar in the BCLM car park, he was grateful to hand a large bag of records to his friend Trace Smith, who had collected MOJO at Tipton station and with whom Plant has played five-a-side football since the late \u201970s.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cYou get a better idea of me by meeting here rather than in the Hyatt in Birmingham,\u201d says Plant, as we settle down in Stanton\u2019s. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t have any idea about the warmth of this area as a place and as a people. I know the story of these places really well, and my family are embedded in it.\u201d<\/p>\n A big figure in that story is his paternal grandfather, Robert Shropshire Plant, who as a member of the Dudley Port Band would play at the bandstand in Tipton\u2019s nearby Victoria Park. \u201cHe was a very interesting and eccentric great musician,\u201d says Plant. \u201cHe played to the silent movies in the orchestra pit up the road at the Hippodrome, when it could just as easily be Sun Ra because they were playing free-form at times. He played fiddle in that situation, but he was also a trombonist. He also went to see Buffalo Bill\u2019s Wild West show, he was only about eight. Buffalo Bill did two shows back to back, one here, one over the border in the dark lands of Birmingham. Imagine how ridiculous that spectacle was for a society that was almost indentured to the great machine.\u201d<\/p>\n Plant laughs as he recalls Robert Shropshire returning late from the pub to his Tipton terraced house and placing a flat cap on the end of a stick as he walked through the front door to puncture the wrath of his wife. \u201cHe advised me to \u2018always get plenty of neck oil\u2019\u2026\u201d This gnarled piece of Black Country wisdom gained wider recognition in 2011 when Plant\u2019s son Logan founded the Beavertown brewery and christened its session IPA Neck Oil in honour of his forefathers.<\/p>\n \u201cDudley\u2019s been much desecrated, the bandstand in the park where my grandfather played was demolished,\u201d says Robert. \u201cBut this is obviously a fantastic environment. And the high spots about it all is that when people work really hard, there\u2019s a big, strong community in that group of people, and that\u2019s what I came back for. Because your worth is really just to know who you are. I was constricted wandering around in Austin, Texas, because of a lot of finger-pointing and phones. And should I be worried about that? Not at all, but it was just good to get back here.\u201d<\/p>\n Where there\u2019s none of that?<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe up the Molineux,\u201d he says, referring to the Wolves\u2019 home ground that Plant, now a club Vice-President, first visited as a five-year-old. \u201cSometimes people have had a few too many pints on the way in and they want a picture for their grandad. It\u2019s getting worse, because it used to be for their dad! But yeah\u2026 I came back.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/3-3.jpg” title_text=”3″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Plant and Wolves stars before 1980\u2019s League Cup win.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n ROBERT PLANT\u2019S LATEST VEHICLE ENABLES HIS roaming instincts without him having to leave the green grass of home. Each member of Saving Grace connects through the West Midlands music community, with varying measures of age and experience. Guitarist Tony Kelsey is a Birmingham scene mainstay who had played in Bev Bevan\u2019s latter-day incarnation of The Move and backed Plant in a version of Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down at a 2014 charity gig organised by Steve Winwood for his local church. The band\u2019s other guitarist, Matt Worley, ran Strings And Things, a music shop in Stourport, near Kidderminster, as well as the adjacent Swan pub, the focus of a vibrant local scene which Plant discovered upon returning from his Texan adventure. Also passing through The Swan were a young couple, drummer Oli Jefferson and singer Suzi Dian, and Plant credits Worley with coalescing this disparate group, initially for a Swan session in 2019.<\/p>\n \u201cMatt\u2019s a huge figure in what we do,\u201d he says. \u201cEnergy, positivity, charm, resilience. He\u2019s the same age as my boy, so his wings were still a little moist, but he already knew about Mike Heron\u2019s Smiling Men With Bad Reputations<\/i> and the original [Incredible] String Band, the whole Ewan MacColl British side of things. I\u2019d played washboard in the folk clubs before I played harmonica or sang, and I\u2019d seen Ian Campbell and Alex Campbell come through, the unaccompanied singers singing about coal barges that sank\u2026 To me, the Robert Johnson stuff was so much more evocative, but Matt didn\u2019t know anything about the myth of the crossroads. So we had lots to talk about and the band built from there.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/5-2.jpg” title_text=”5″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Style counsellor: Plant steps out, 1969<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Saving Grace simmered quietly while Plant completed work on 2021\u2019s Raise The Roof<\/i>, his second album with Alison Krauss. Early tour plans were interrupted by the pandemic lockdown, but their self-titled debut album was eventually recorded at several locations, including Monnow Valley in Wales and a couple of farms in Worcestershire and the Cotswolds. The key analogue from Plant\u2019s previous travels appears to be Band Of Joy: instead of Nashville cosmic country guitar guru Buddy Miller it\u2019s Kelsey and Worley juggling cuattro, banjo, mandolin, and baritone guitars to build a vaporous psychedelic undertow to the ensemble\u2019s extrapolations upon Moby Grape, Low, Donovan, Blind Willie Johnson et al, plus choice selections from the Trad Arr hymnbook. Suzi Dian, meanwhile, is the deceptively wraith-like Patty Griffin figure, her voice melding with, shadowing or overwhelming Plant\u2019s as the song demands.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n For their first rehearsal, Plant recalls asking Dian to try Gospel Plough and The Everly Brothers\u2019 When Will I Be Loved. \u201cJust to get into something which had a lilt,\u201d he says. \u201cSuzi\u2019s so great because she can sing so delicately and then she can just turn it on. Like the Esther Phillips adage \u2013 from a whisper to a scream. And Oli got himself a really good bass drum \u2013 calf skin heads, I think it\u2019s a 1942 Carlton \u2013 and the sound changed. Because you hit the bass drum, and it takes a while before it finishes its little sonic journey. So Oli became the drone master. On Gospel Plough on the record, there\u2019s a wall air extractor, which was in the barn where we were recording.\u201d He laughs. \u201c\u2018Extractor fan\u2019 \u2013 that\u2019s what they should call my career! How many times have I come bearing false gifts?!\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/4-3.jpg” title_text=”4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Robert with fans, including future wife Maureen on Plant\u2019s left, outside Wednesbury Magistrates, August 11, 1967<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Spend time with Plant yapping about music and it\u2019s not long before your head starts reeling as he leaps between Shreveport and Isfahan, detouring via Ireland and Egypt, and thence from Dundee to Timbuktu \u2013 all map reference points in articulating the stories of a lifetime. But his knowledge is lightly worn, and the Saving Grace experience revealed him as much pupil as pedagogue. For instance, the album\u2019s opening track is Chevrolet, a song Plant remembered as Donovan\u2019s 1965 single Hey Gyp (Dig The Slowness). He also knew its 1960 recording as Chevrolet by Lonnie Young and Ed Young. But what he didn\u2019t know was it had originally been written and recorded as Can I Do It For You by Memphis Minnie in 1930 as a duet with her then husband Kansas Joe McCoy. That\u2019s the same Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe who wrote When The Levee Breaks, which Led Zeppelin turned into a signature behemoth in 1971. More recently, Hey Gyp (Dig The Slowness) was covered on 2019\u2019s Help Us Stranger<\/i> by The Raconteurs, sung by Jack White, a man whose transformative blues skills with The White Stripes and beyond owe a clear debt to Plant and Zeppelin.<\/p>\n \u201cJack\u2019s incredible,\u201d says Plant. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not even petty theft. Sweet Home Chicago wasn\u2019t by Robert Johnson, it was Kokomo Arnold, and it\u2019s called Sweet Home Kokomo. But how far back do you go from that? Suzi went to Cecil Sharp House to see where some of the songs on the record came from and it seems like seven or eight people have written I Never Will Marry. So here\u2019s the adventure again. You\u2019re sliding down that rabbit hole.\u201d He laughs. \u201cI can have a sexy night with a woman and they\u2019ll be asleep within two or three hours of hearing me talk about James Carr living in a shelter or something.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/6-2.jpg” title_text=”6″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n See my friends: Saving Grace, ready to folk at Festival de Poupet (from top) Barney Morse-Brown, Robert Plant, Tony Kelsey, Suzi Dian, Oli Jefferson, Matt Worley, Theatre De Verdure, St Malo, July 10, 2025.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n What qualities do Saving Grace bring to you that a different group couldn\u2019t?<\/b> Tourist information centres?!<\/b> [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_gallery gallery_ids=”2907,2908,2909,2910″ fullwidth=”on” module_class=”fp-gallery” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_gallery][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Rug and roll: Plant and Led Zeppelin tour manager Richard Cole, New York, July 30, 1973; Plant, Kelsey, Dian and Worley on-stage; Jimmy Page and John Bonham give no quarter, Germany, March 1973; Saving Grace in communion, Festival de Poupet, July 10, 2025.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Because you\u2019ve already done the football stadiums with the old mates thing? With Led Zeppelin at Live Aid, the Ahmet Ertegun tribute at the O2 Arena\u2026<\/b> [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Today\u2019s elite music careers are pitched at such a heated level: \u2018360 deals\u2019, \u2018dynamic pricing\u2019, people trying to extract something before a dying star implodes. You seem happier to exist more modestly.<\/b> [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/4_1.jpg” title_text=”4_1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Post-Page & Plant, your career trajectory has been a zigzag, never sticking in one place for long. Do you have commitment issues?<\/b> Some of your most notable vocal work has been in collaboration with women: The Battle Of Evermore with Sandy Denny, Raising Sand<\/i> with Alison Krauss, Band Of Joy<\/i> with Patty Griffin, and now Saving Grace<\/i> with Suzi Dian \u2013 does it change how you sing?<\/b> [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/11-2.jpg” title_text=”11″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Everybody\u2019s song: Plant with Sandy Denny at Melody Maker\u2019s 1970 Pop Poll Awards<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n MOJO IS MEETING ROBERT PLANT the day before Black Sabbath\u2019s stellar-guest-studded valedictory performance at Villa Park: a textbook example of doing the football stadium with the old mates because you don\u2019t want to let somebody else down. Just a few hours earlier, Plant had been on the phone with Tony Iommi, who asked if he wanted to go to the show.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, Tony, I\u2019d love to come, but I can\u2019t come. Because I know how it will be for me to see Steven Tyler, who I had loved many times as Steven Tyler\u2026 I just can\u2019t. I\u2019m not saying that I\u2019d rather hang out with Peter Gabriel or Youssou N\u2019Dour, but I don\u2019t know anything about what\u2019s going on in that world now, at all. I don\u2019t decry it, I\u2019ve got nothing against it. It\u2019s just I found these other places that are so rich.\u201d<\/p>\n As if to prove the point, Plant pulls out his phone and scrolls. \u201cIf you don\u2019t know Nora Brown, your world is about to change.\u201d He taps the screen and out comes a version of the Kentucky traditional song Wedding Dress. The Brooklynite Brown was just 16 when she recorded it in 2021, but her chilling treatment rattles like exhumed skeletons in deepest Appalachia, making earlier renderings by The Seegers and Pentangle seem slick and frivolous in comparison.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s got a wooden-bodied fretless banjo that was used a lot by the black musicians,\u201d Plant says. \u201cAnd I can\u2019t tell you how plaintive her voice is. She\u2019s found a lot of the songs that I found, and she\u2019s found songs I haven\u2019t found. This is how we open our show now, with this song.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/12-2.jpg” title_text=”12″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Alison Krauss and Plant at New Orleans JazzFest, 2008<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Plant happened upon Nora Brown playing 2024\u2019s Cambridge Folk Festival, which Saving Grace headlined \u2013 a statement performance just five years since their early gigs opening for Fairport Convention.<\/p>\n \u201cWe folk people now!\u201d he laughs. \u201cPatty Griffin always used to say to me, \u2018Hey! Let\u2019s make an album! We\u2019ll call it\u2026 Folk Off<\/i>!\u2019 So that\u2019s the adventure \u2013 you become part of this fraternity of explorers. With Saving Grace, it\u2019s a very new adventure. We all have fun. Everybody takes a gin and tonic at the end of the set before the encore. I always say, Don\u2019t hold the glasses during<\/i> the encore, because it\u2019s usually an a cappella piece and we\u2019ll look like the fucking Dubliners if we\u2019re not careful! I see really good things happening.\u201d<\/p>\n Another recent connection illustrates where Plant\u2019s head is at, and how far he\u2019s removed from the legacy Zep-rock hinterland. On Paul Weller\u2019s new album of deep-cut covers, Find El Dorado<\/i>, Plant contributes blues harmonica and a verse of vocals to Clive\u2019s Song, written by Incredible String Band co-founder Clive Palmer and originally recorded in 1971 by Scottish folk hero Hamish Imlach. Plant is clearly still bubbling at meeting a fellow seeker.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat a miner for songs he is,\u201d he says. \u201cI think Paul is onto something great. With Steve [Cradock] with him, the two of them have got a really good thing going. I like Paul because he\u2019s sharp. Whereas I\u2019m a bit wishy-washy, sort of peace and lovey.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s a Mod \u2013 sharpness is baked into the religion. [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/13-2.jpg” title_text=”13″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Led Zeppelin\u2019s John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant with arts and politics luminaries at the Kennedy Centre Honours Gala, Washington DC, December 1, 2012.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n When we get to a certain age, assimilating new things becomes more difficult, and many people settle for what they know. They stop taking stuff in, or giving much out. In terms of music, Weller\u2019s not like that, and nor it seems are you.<\/b> So you\u2019ve never been tempted to just do what most of your contemporaries are happy to do \u2013 kick back and play the hits?<\/b> [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”pull-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#111111″ header_2_font_size=”46px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Google AI doesn\u2019t refute rumours of a Led Zeppelin reunion.<\/b> \u201cIt\u2019s not yesterday\u2019s achievements, but today\u2019s targets and tomorrow\u2019s goal that give us a reason for being and not simply having been.\u201d That was you, writing in the first Robert Plant solo tour programme in 1982.<\/b> [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/5_1.jpg” title_text=”5_1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n I suspect your mission statement now wouldn\u2019t be much different.<\/b> That audience may well have been your former bandmates.<\/b> Which doesn\u2019t mean he gives it to them.<\/b> You do play some Zeppelin songs with Saving Grace, albeit the likes of Friends and Four Sticks and The Rain Song \u2013 ie, not the obvious ones and in a very different contexts to the originals.<\/b> [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/14-2.jpg” title_text=”14″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text module_class=”image-gallery-caption” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|300|||||||” text_font_size=”16px” text_line_height=”1.2em” custom_margin=”-10px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n Been a long time: a newly formed Led Zeppelin, London, December 1968 (from left) Jones, Page, Plant, Bonham.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text module_class=”text-with-dropcap” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n WE EXIT STANTON\u2019S, RETURNING DUDLEY\u2019S venerable music emporium to the Black Country Living Museum visitors. On the replica 1950s street he obliges a young woman in a Boston T-shirt with a selfie, and another who tells him Stairway To Heaven is \u201cactually the greatest song of all time\u201d. Plant winces, possibly from the pain in his knee. By the time that\u2019s fixed, Saving Grace\u2019s debut album will be out and the band touring America. How, MOJO wonders, does someone so invested in a globalist discourse, deal with the dire geo-political state of things?<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve spoken to two or three companions in America recently, and the first thing they do is apologise. The conversation immediately goes to the question of sanity. How do I deal with it? There are people I know that say I should say what I think, but there\u2019s so many strands to it. It\u2019s a slow death of everything we ever loved. From an American viewpoint, I could only add my support to Bruce Springsteen because he actually knows it, he lives in it. If we talk about Britain, what can I say? The mess remains. I have my opinions, but the best thing I can do is try and make people feel OK when I play, and maybe be slightly ridiculous between songs.\u201d<\/p>\n Plant\u2019s recent curatorial orientation, however rewarding, comes at a price: his songwriting. His two albums prior to Raise The Roof<\/i>, the Sensational Space Shifters-powered Carry Fire<\/i> and Lullaby And The Ceaseless Roar<\/i> were two of his greatest, powerful dispatches from the personal and global frontlines, as Plant looked within himself, and repeatedly found \u201cthe song that never dies\u201d. Might his roving spirit permit one more such journey?<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/08\/6_1.jpg” title_text=”6_1″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s possible,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve got lots of anecdotal couplets, but what I need is long loops of music \u2013 flat, one-chord grooves where I can create melody. I did it really well with Justin [Adams] and Johnny Baggott. They came with their own condition, which is brilliant. What we have in Saving Grace now, we can do all sorts of trips in a very demure way that can fit into the way that impresses me to write. We can make it trippy, and that\u2019s where it belongs, this whole deal. So, yes, I think there\u2019s every likelihood.\u201d<\/p>\n Plant offers MOJO a lift back to Tipton station. We hit traffic just past the statue of William Perry, AKA the Tipton Slasher, England\u2019s 1850s champion heavyweight boxer, and with the Jag\u2019s satnav mute, MOJO\u2019s phone re-routes us around Victoria Park. \u201cThis is a none-more-Plant odyssey,\u201d the singer exclaims. He slows down at 91 Park Lane East, the very house where Lord Neck Oil did his hat on the stick trick. Further along the same street, Plant points out where his father, another Robert, was born.<\/p>\n \u201cI used to have two cats, Dudley and Tipton,\u201d Plant muses, \u201cbecause my mum came from Dudley and my dad from Tipton. I just wonder \u2013 how\u2019ve we got to an era where what we loosely call my peer group are writing books? Because they can\u2019t get it in the book. All this stuff that I\u2019ve experienced, so many adventures, so many tales \u2013 it\u2019s fantastic, you know. And I wouldn\u2019t even remember them if I wasn\u2019t talking to you. It\u2019s a big story.\u201d<\/p>\n Too big for a book? [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_divider][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-names” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font_size=”14px” text_orientation=”center” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n lighting by James Hole and retouch by Ryan at Milk and Metal; Chris Walter\/WireImage\/Getty; Cyrus Andrews\/Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty, Jerry Zolten\/Dust-to-Digital, PA Images\/Alamy, Daily Mirror\/Mirrorpix via Getty, David Bagnall\/Alamy; Tom Oldham (5); Gijsbert Hanekroot\/Redferns\/Getty, Express Newspapers\/Getty<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From a home in England\u2019s West Midlands, to Knebworth and Live Aid with Led Zep and back, via fame, fortune, tragedy and musical resurrection \u2013 Robert Plant\u2019s come full circle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2927,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mojo-presents"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"kschwarz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2893"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2938,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2893\/revisions\/2938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/mojo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}“I can have a sexy night with a woman and they\u2019ll be asleep within two or three hours of hearing me talk about James Carr.”<\/h2>\n
“Nobody knows what it\u2019s like, for me, having had that journey from 1966 to this today, nobody has a clue. I like that.”<\/h2>\n
First of all, there\u2019s nothing riding on it. This is not something where a record company puts money up and you fly out to some far-off place, and you\u2019re greeted by somebody with a bag of weed. It\u2019s nothing like that at all. The longest journey between the six of us is probably an hour. So it\u2019s fresh. The enthusiasm and excitement is something you don\u2019t just have to sort of plug in or pop into a particular period of time, because this is what they do, and this is what we do. When we started, we were playing information centres on the Welsh borders, in Bishop\u2019s Castle, to 90 people, playing tiny theatres in Cardigan. Where we should<\/i> play. <\/p>\n
Yeah! And, you know, Theatr Brycheiniog in Brecon. In the Space Shifters we played Nordkapp in northern Norway. It literally was a tourist information centre! Then we got down to Copenhagen and played Roskilde to compensate for that ridiculousness. But yeah, I said, Let\u2019s just call it Saving Grace \u2013 because it gets me off the hook. There\u2019s not any likelihood of letting anybody down. Nobody knows what it\u2019s like, for me, having had that journey from 1966, making my first record, to this today, nobody has a clue. I like that, and I like the fact that I might make several more curves along the way. The gigs are small enough so that if nobody wants to go, it\u2019s not the end of the world. And so by having that laissez faire<\/i>, easygoing, whatever it\u2019s called \u2013 suicidal! \u2013 attitude, instead of doing the football stadium with some old mates, there it was: we were free. We could mess about.<\/p>\n
I suppose for me, because I\u2019ve been from a very questionable Live Aid to the O2, to Obama and the White House and all those things, I was beatified. I felt the tug of doing this \u2013 Saving Grace needed just to move on up in glory, as Mavis [Staples] would say. We\u2019ve got to be very careful now that we make sure it stays closer to Bert Jansch than Axl Rose.<\/p>\n“In the beginning with Zeppelin, there was no T-shirts, no security. Later on, we each had a cop with a gun with us, everywhere we went.”<\/h2>\n
Because I have been to some incredible pinnacles which were unguarded. In the beginning with Zeppelin, there was no T-shirts, no security. Later on, we each had a cop with a gun with us, everywhere we went. But we were really still just kids. So the structure of everything was not covered. Everybody found jobs for themselves on the p\u00e9riph\u00e9rique<\/i> of the star quality: somebody to look after you, somebody to offer you something, somebody to coerce somebody not<\/i> to look after you\u2026 All that stuff is just a mess. And because one of my chickens came home long before John [Bonham] passed away, probably three years before that, when I lost my son [Plant and his wife Maureen\u2019s five-year-old son Karac died in 1977], I realised: am I doing this just because I don\u2019t want to let anybody else down? If you bail and you have earth-shattering moments in your life, to get up and do it again is a tough call, because you lose the frivolity of a young man. You go into another world.<\/p>\n
Ha! Well, I do but not in music \u2013 I\u2019m completely committed to anything that\u2019s really good, absolutely anything that is meaningful. When Page and I got back together in the mid \u201990s, I brought in Hossam Ramzy, the Egyptian percussionist. And with him came my guys, Michael Lee, the drummer and Charlie Jones and our friend from The Cure, Porl [Thompson], and Hossam brought in these Egyptians and a couple of Moroccans. The rub between everybody was just incredible, and the filming that we did to go with that, down in Marrakech and Gulmin and in Zagora, almost on the Algerian border, was phenomenal. On the top of the Atlas, the Tizi n\u2019Test pass\u2026 something I could never have imagined, and it\u2019s kept broadening my listening and learning. One of the guys would say, \u201cMr Robert, you have to stay in the same scale.\u201d I said, \u201cFuck the scales \u2013 I\u2019m just having a really good time!\u201d They really did a job on me, led me to [Tinariwen producer] Justin Adams and [Portishead keyboardist] Johnny Baggott and the whole deal of finding people to play tough guitar without it being rock. So the zigzag, a lot of it, has come by circumstance, but it\u2019s a cleansing, because other people\u2019s enthusiasm is new and exciting.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think so, no. It depends on the intensity of the song. Alison really pulled me into the idea of singing rather than singing. Because being in a four-piece band for a long time, there was a lot going on but there wasn\u2019t a lot to sing about. Alison said to me at our first rehearsal: \u201cI like singing with you. I like your voice texture against my voice. But how do you expect me to sing a harmony when you don\u2019t sing the same thing twice? Just try it. See what it sounds like\u2026\u201d Alison taught me how to sing properly. And as that first big chunk of our lives together came to an end, and we couldn\u2019t go any farther, I\u2019d fallen in love with Buddy Miller, his sensitivity and his humour in his playing. I found so many people I didn\u2019t know about. I was listening to George Jones, The Louvin Brothers, Clarence Ashley. I felt like a traitor because I\u2019d spent so much time marvelling at the phrasing and timing of Robert Johnson, Tommy McLennan\u2026 But then I found this other thing that I would have never given a moment. Buddy was the curator of my new world. So I\u2019m committed to my own love of it all.<\/p>\n
\u201cD\u2019you know, they found a picture of me coming out of a court in West Bromwich! And not the court of the Crimson King either \u2013 I\u2019m coming out of this courtroom and I\u2019ve got a pair of trainers on\u2026 I get this call \u2013 (adopts very plausible Weller voice<\/i>) \u2018Perce! What are those fucking trainers?\u2019 I said, Well, I don\u2019t know \u2013 I don\u2019t know where I was living then. I wasn\u2019t living at home, I was living in a van or something. \u2018Oh, man, if you find them\u2026\u2019 And I suddenly thought, Next time I go to Gambia or southern Morocco, I can get loads of trainers, I can make a fortune out of Paul and Steve! But I think Paul\u2019s great. He\u2019s got a good root about him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, at the end of my first formative period, I was in what you\u2019d loosely call the biggest band in the world. The fervour that surrounded that, it was an unearthly condition and because of its terrible finales, I got suddenly launched into that post- Zeppelin thing where I went, I\u2019m never gonna play any Zeppelin stuff again. I\u2019m gonna get a TR 808, and write Big Log, or Fat Lip, whatever it was. But I was on my own, and Atlantic, Ahmet and people like that, were saying: \u201cWhy don\u2019t you put the band back together?\u201d I said, Look, I\u2019ve made a record called Shaken\u2019n\u2019Stirred<\/i>. Nobody likes it, but I like it. Fuck it. Nobody liked Zeppelin, but we liked it. Fuck it. And if it ever gets to another point where it\u2019s not like that in my quantifying of it, then I\u2019m lost. I\u2019ll just be an Elvis impersonator. I\u2019m really good at doing Elvis!<\/p>\n
What were<\/i> the hits? How can they be related to now, where do they fit? They fit as a sort of memoir\u2026 When people say that I don\u2019t like Stairway To Heaven, I just don\u2019t like the idea<\/i> of it. These iconic things \u2013 they\u2019re just what they are. But you know, most people have missed some of the best Zeppelin stuff. For Your Life, on Presence<\/i>. Achilles Last Stand! Fucking hell. Just extraordinary that three people and a singer can do that. Really, they were pulling so much stuff out of the unknown, Bonham and Jones together on For Your Life. It\u2019s just insane. And Jimmy, just\u2026 (exhales<\/i>) I suppose, to do it for the sake of it was never what Zeppelin was about. And the tribute to Ahmet, it came through. You know, without John, but it came through. It was a good study. The smell of fear on that stage was quite remarkable. Because we\u2019ve been shambolic at times, and great other times. That\u2019s how it should be if you\u2019re taking risks like that.<\/p>\n“Achilles Last Stand! Fucking hell. Just extraordinary that three people and a singer can do that.”<\/h2>\n
Yeah, isn\u2019t that great! They\u2019re just trying to get me used to the term \u2018AI\u2019, as if I\u2019m embracing it. AI\u2019s about extortion. Maybe it\u2019s just a way of flogging tickets to something that never happens.<\/p>\n
Really? Wow.<\/p>\n
Yeah. Except then I was trying to justify myself to an audience that didn\u2019t want it. And a record company.<\/p>\n
Oh, to say the least, yeah. And not just the once! (laughs<\/i>) But the thing about that is, everything had to change anyway. I think Paul Weller\u2019s got a great audience, but he always says, \u201cI know what they want\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
(Laughs<\/i>) I said, Yeah, you know what \u2018they\u2019 want. I know what \u2018they\u2019 want, but who the fuck are \u2018they\u2019? I\u2019m one of \u2018theys\u2019. I\u2019m a \u2018they\u2019! I went with Miss Pamela from the GTOs to see Dion DiMucci at the Aladdin about 10 years ago in Vegas. And he was fantastic. He\u2019s got that Italian scat stuff, Born To Cry and Lovers Who Wander, but like they, I was going, Come on, it\u2019s got to be The Majestic! What about Hoochie Coochie Boy? What about Ruby Baby? Come on! And he sang Abraham Martin And John, and I was going, Well, yeah, it was a very important song\u2026 But! Come on!!!<\/i> So I really sympathise with \u2018they\u2019. They remain the same.<\/p>\n
Exactly. I think it does work, though. It works for me, and it works for the band. Feels like \u2018they\u2019 won\u2019t be so distressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll never write a book.\u201d He smiles and offers his hand. \u201cWhat did Donovan say? \u2018What\u2019s been did\u2019s been hid.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n