Raising Sand

It’s been awhile since I’ve been excited about new music. The last time I bought something that I couldn’t stop playing was the new disc from Blanche. But the other night I was flipping through the free videos on cable and I came across a Robert Plant/Alison Krauss concert and I was blown away.

It used to be that I would mostly catch new things while I was driving around listening to the radio. I listened to Martin Bandyke when he was on WDET and that’s where I first heard music from Blanche, Feist, Beth Orton and the Eels. I also discovered Howard Stern as I drove to UM to public health school and I was hooked but I had to stop listening when the kids were around. Which was all the time. I tried to get a Howard Stern fix once while driving but I couldn’t flip the channel fast enough when it got raunchy and next thing I know my kid is asking me, “Mom, are you wearing panties?”

I bought Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss and it’s fantastic. These are two talented people that can obviously belt them out, and they do sometimes, but more often hit the songs with restrained wistful achiness. With T-Bone Burnett on guitar and producing, which I guess is really good because all the reviews mention it. But I’m just name-dropping.

Here are two videos from the concert. The first song is on the disc and the second isn’t but I wish it were. It's a traditional called The Boy Who Wouldn’t Hoe His Corn that is on another Alison Krauss record.

And in a nod to positive ageing, I would just like to say that Robert Plant is looking quite fine in all his non-surgified cragginess.