Busa Bombs: Raising Sand

If you are wondering why this pair swooped the Grammy's, wonder no longer. The first track, Rich Woman, is by far my favorite, but you be your own judge... The review below is one I completely agree with. This album makes me want to kick back in a squeaky rocking chair on a dingy porch in the country, with a glass of whiskey in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

Raising Sand
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
By Dave White

The Rock Music Cross-genre collaborations are often more about marketing than music. Sometimes they are designed to jump-start an older artist's sagging career or to give a young artist exposure by being paired with an established one.

With no sagging careers and the artists firmly established, the collaboration between Robert Plant, Alison Krauss and producer T Bone Burnett is all about the music. Raising Sand is less a joining of genres than it is the coming together of musical talent that isn't limited by any one style of music.

The Players
Much has been made of the seeming incongruity of the Plant-Krauss pairing, but it's time to just get over it.

Krauss is an avowed classic rock fan, being particularly fond of a little band called Led Zeppelin, for whom Plant wrote and performed music that had extensive blues, folk and Celtic influences. If you had played a game of Six Degrees of Alison Krauss before this collaboration ever came about, it wouldn't have taken more than a degree or two to connect these artists.

And then there's T Bone Burnett. Songwriter, musician (he toured with Bob Dylan back in the day and plays guitar on most of this album's tracks) and, most famously, producer of albums and movie soundtracks (he somehow managed to coach Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon to sound like Johnny and June Carter Cash in Walk The Line.) He has a gift for blending vocal and instrumental elements, and coaxing just the right interpretation of lyrics.

The Sound

Photo by Pamela Springsteen, courtesy Rounder RecordsGiven the track records of all involved, there was never any doubt that the result of this collaboration would be good. But the imagination can only go so far in predicting what two of the most distinctive and recognizable voices imaginable would sound like together.

One of my biggest questions is answered in the opening track, "Rich Woman." Plant sings lead, but tempered with Krauss' harmony, neither voice dominates. To the contrary, the blend is so natural, you'd think they had been singing together for years.

Again on the closing track, "Your Long Journey," this time with Krauss leading and Plant harmonizing, the resulting blend is the stuff of which goosebumps are made.

Krauss leads on "Through The Morning, Through The Night" which is the one track that is most like what you might expect to hear on one of her albums.

Several of the arrangements have a slightly mysterious, almost haunting sound that is characteristic of many of Burnett's own recordings. This works well on "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us" and "Polly Come Home."

No Boundaries
The various musical influences that both artists bring to the party are evident throughout. "Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)" -- written by The Everly Brothers -- is somewhere between bebop and The Byrds. Hard rock meets the blues on Townes Van Zandt's "Nothin'".

Plant, Krauss and Burnett are masters of their craft, which is that of creating memorable music. This is, hands down, the best collaboration that has come about in a very long time -- maybe since The Traveling Wilburys. If Raising Sand doesn't result in more than one GRAMMY, I'll be very surprised.

Monday

Raising Sand

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