Robert Plant walked into a Nashville studio with a bluegrass fiddler and a producer known for stripping songs to their bones. The result was Raising Sand, the album by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss that arrived on October 23, 2007. It sold about 112,000 copies in its first week and landed at number 2 on the Billboard 200. For Plant, the voice of Led Zeppelin, and Krauss, a singer whose bluegrass credentials were already beyond dispute, it was the highest either had ever climbed as a solo artist.
A covers album shaped by Burnett
The idea looked odd on paper. Plant was the rock legend, Krauss the roots-music virtuoso. Producer T-Bone Burnett put them together and shaped a record built almost entirely on other people's songs. The album had 13 tracks, nearly all covers, from the swampy opener Rich Woman to the aching Your Long Journey. Plant sang on most of them, but he stepped back on three, leaving Krauss to lead Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us, Through the Morning, Through the Night, and Let Your Loss Be Your Lesson.
The sessions were spread across Nashville, Los Angeles, and Hollywood, with time at Sound Emporium, Electro Magnetic, Village Recorder, and Stage & Sound. Burnett brought in guitarists Marc Ribot and Norman Blake, and also played guitar himself, and Krauss played fiddle on Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us, Please Read the Letter, and Nothin'. The sound was spare and close, as if the room itself was part of the performance. There was no Led Zeppelin thunder, no bluegrass sprint. Instead, two voices that had no business blending found a strange, quiet harmony. The album was released by Rounder Records and Zoë Records, and its total running time came to 57 minutes.
The sound was spare and close, as if the room itself was part of the performance.
Five-star reviews and Metacritic's 87
Critics fell hard. Rolling Stone put Raising Sand at number 24 on its list of the best albums of 2007. Mojo gave it five stars out of five. Uncut gave it five stars out of five. Metacritic's average landed at 87 out of 100. The praise was not just for the singing but for the restraint, the way the album refused to show off.
Then the awards started piling up. In 2008 the album won Album of the Year at the Americana Music Honors & Awards and was nominated for the Mercury Prize in Britain. At the Grammy ceremony in 2009, Raising Sand swept all five of its nominations, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year for Please Read the Letter. The song was written by Jimmy Page, Charlie Jones, Michael Lee, and Robert Plant, but here it sounded reborn.
The commercial run matched the critical one. The album went platinum in March 2008, and after the Grammy wins it topped the Top Rock Albums and Top Internet Albums charts. It reached number 2 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart, blocked only by Taylor Swift's Fearless. In the UK it also peaked at number 2, and in Norway it went all the way to number 1.
The follow-up sessions that failed
A follow-up seemed obvious. In 2009 Plant and Krauss began work on a second album with Burnett again producing. A year later Plant admitted the sessions had failed. The chemistry that made Raising Sand feel effortless did not return on command. They shelved the project and walked away, leaving the first album as a one-off moment. In 2010 Plant said the follow-up sessions had failed, and the project was shelved.
It took more than a decade for another attempt, though the exact span was never the point. Raise the Roof finally arrived in 2021, but the long gap only sharpened what the first record had achieved. Lily Allen called Raising Sand her album of the century, and the numbers backed the feeling. A rock titan and a roots singer had made something neither could have made alone, and it sold steadily and earned a lasting place.
Nineteen years later, the album still works because it never tries to impress. It just sits in the room with you, two voices and a handful of guitars, playing songs that were already old before they found them.