With Band of Joy Robert Plant continues (and refines) his foray into Americana that he began with 2007′s collaboration with Alison Krauss, Raising Sand. An attempt to cut a second album with Krauss reportedly fizzled, so this time he’s on his own with a stable of backing musicians that include some of the best of alternative Nashville. That includes producer and guitarist Buddy Miller, who has mostly followed the template laid down by Raising Sand producer T Bone Burnett, giving the album a sound that is at once stripped-down and dense-sounding. It was recorded at the legendary Woodland Studios in Nashville, where Bob Dylan recorded Nashville Skyline, now owned by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. Its title is an homage to one of Plant’s first bands in the pre-Led Zeppelin 1960s.
I have to confess that Raising Sand was a disappointment to me. As much as I love Alison Krauss, and respect both Plant and Burnett, I found the first half of the album to be altogether too soporific for my taste. The second half picked up the tempo and piqued my interest more, but too often I gave up (or fell asleep) before I got there.
This album is a refreshing change, kicking off with an energetic cover of Los Lobos’ “Angel Dance” from their rootsy 1990 album The Neighborhood. It’s followed by a fairly obscure Richard Thompson song, “House of Cards,” and immediately we have the possibility of a theme of light vs. dark emerging. “Angel Dance” is basically a lullaby, albeit an energetic one, promising the child who is being tucked in that any noises heard in the night are angels dancing in the halls; and “House of Cards,” its verses taking the call-and-response form of a sea shanty, carries a typical Thompson message about the impermanence of the physical world. Miller, possibly the only guitarist in Nashville capable of adequately approaching Thompson’s guitar work, adds some nice understated playing to the song.
The entire album consists of thoughtfully chosen covers, with the exception of “Central Two-0-Nine,” a bluesy mountain ballad of two-line verses, co-written by Miller and Plant. It’s one of my favorites in this collection. And the closing track, “Even This Shall Pass Away,” is a poem by American writer Theodore Tilton set to music by Plant and Miller. Most of the covers are fairly obscure, much as those on Raising Sand were. The highlights for me are “You Can’t Buy My Love,” a ’60s Cajun rocker that sounds like an answer to The Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love,” written by Billy and Bobby Babineaux; and “Falling in Love Again,” a lovely waltz with a gospel quartet singing backup. The combination of pedal steel and the R&B crooning sets this 1965 song perfectly midway between Nashville and Memphis. Kudos especially to Darrell Scott, who plays the pedal steel and, I assume, provides the low harmonies.
As on the previous album, there’s a Townes Van Zandt cover, this one “Harm’s Swift Way.” The upbeat and rhythmic arrangement of this ballad is a different setting for a Van Zandt song, and it casts its poetically complex lyric about the hazards of love in an interesting perspective. Another creative arrangement is given to the traditional song recorded by Uncle Dave Macon, “Cindy, I’ll Marry You Someday.” Plant and Miller have put it in a dark minor key, accompanied by plinking banjo and a bass drum booming ominously in the distance. (A side note: I’m fairly sure that the ’60s Latino pop singer Trini Lopez used the same traditional song as the basis for his hit “I’m Coming Home, Cindy.”)
Plant sounds almost like Mick Jagger in his ’70s country music period on “The Only Sound That Matters,” a song by the Austin alt-country group Milton Mapes. Plant uses his full vocal range on this one, or at least digs down deeper than we usually hear. That voice is a very expressive instrument, and he has learned to use it very well in his long and influential career.
Those are the highlights for me. The rest consists of a couple of songs by the “slowcore” band Low (“Silver Rider” and “Monkey”); an earnest take on “Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down” and the closer, “Even This Shall Pass Away.” It’s an odd song, an allegory about a mythical king of Persia set to a martial beat, with a deep bass drone between the verses. Plant sounds most like his Led Zep incarnation when he sings this one.
Although this album doesn’t have the gorgeous harmonies of Ms. Krauss, several quite talented singers do contribute backing vocals. Patty Griffin sings harmony on most of the tracks, particularly beautifully on the two Low covers, and Bekka Bramlett sings on both “Angel Dance” and “House of Cards.” Bramlett, of course, is the daughter of Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, and I’m sure the trainspotters among you can have lots of fun tracing the connections that brings up.
So, although it’s still a bit uneven, I like Band of Joy better than its critically acclaimed and highly popular predecessor. The song selection, pacing and especially the sequencing of the tracks all combine to make this an interesting and entertaining album, and a worthy addition to Mr. Plant’s extensive catalog.
- Gary Whitehouse
(Esparanza/Rounder, 2010)
