Robert Plant/Alison Krauss - Raising Sand

Plant's own obsession with old rockabilly and blues tunes is satisfied on the set's opener, "Rich Woman," by Dorothy LaBostrie and McKinley Miller. It's all swamp, all past midnight, all gigolo boasting. Krauss' harmony vocal underscores Plant's lowkey crooned boast as a mirror, as the person being used and who can't help it. Rollie Salley's "Killing the Blues" sounds like it was recorded by Lanois, with its cough syrup guitars, muffled tom toms, and playedinbedroom atmospherics. Nonetheless, the two vocalists make a brilliant song come to life with their shared sorrow, and it's as if the meaning in the tune actually happens between its bitter irony in the space between the two vocalists as the whine of Leisz's steel roots this country song in the earth, not in the white clouds reflected in its refrain. There is a pair of Gene Clark tunes here as well. Plant is a Clark fan, and so it's not a surprise, but the choices are: "Polly Come Home" and "Through the Morning, Through the Night" come from the second Dillard Clark album from 1969 with the same title as the latter track. The first is a haunting ballad done in an oldworld folk style that Clark would have been proud of. It reflects the same spirit and character as his own White Light album, but with Plant and Krauss, the spirit of CelticcumAppalachian style that influenced bluegrass, and the Delta blues that influenced rock, are breached. "Through the Morning, Through the Night" is a wasted country love song told from the point of view of an outlaw. Plant gets his chance to rock a bit in the Everly Brothers' "Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)." While it sounds nothing like the original, Plant's pipes get to croon and drift over the distorted guitars and a clipped snare; he gets to do his trademark blues improv bit between verses. To be honest, it feels like it was tossed off and, therefore, less studied than anything else here: it's a refreshing change of pace near the middle of the disc. It "rocks" in a roots way.

"Please Read the Letter" is written by Plant, Page Charlie Jones, and Michael Lee. Slow, plodding, almost crawling, Krauss' harmony vocal takes it to the next step, adds the kind of lonesome depth that makes this a song whispered under a starless sky rather than just another lost love song. Waits and Kathleen Brennan's "Trampled Rose," done shotgun ballad style, is, with the Phillips tune, the most beautiful thing here. Krauss near the top of her range sighs into the rhythm. Patrick Warren's toy piano sounds more like a marimba, and his pump organ adds to the percussive nature of this wary hymn from the depths. When she sings "You never pay just once/To get the job done," this skeletal band swells. Ribot's dobro sounds like a rickety banjo, and it stutters just ahead of the bass drum and tom toms in Bellerose's kit. Naomi Neville's "Fortune Teller" shows Burnett at his best as a producer. He lets Plant's voice come falling out of his mouth, staggering and stuttering the rhythms so they feel like a combination of Delta blues, secondline New Orleans, and Congo Square drum walk. The guitar is nasty and distorted, and the brush touches with their metallic sheen are a nice complement to the bass drums. It doesn't rock; it struts and staggers on its way. Krauss' wordless vocal in the background creates a nice space for that incessant series of rhythms to play to.