The term “Rock God” is a much overused one – but if anyone qualifies for the title, it has to be one Robert “Percy” Plant.
During his decade-long stint fronting the mighty Led Zeppelin, Plant epitomised the blueprint for the ‘70s rock star, in all its glory and excess. Tall, slim, blonde-tressed and invariably bare-chested, Plant’s stage presence was unmatched in its day, while his distinctively wailing voice was unrelenting in its power.
Born and raised in England’s Black Country, the teenage Plant was all set for a career in accountancy – his parents pleaded with him to stay in college and to complete his qualifications. But he had other ideas and in the summer of 1966 he left home, quit college and began singing in a string of bands including The Crawling King Snakes and The Band of Joy.
He was soon “discovered” by veteran session guitarist and ex-Yardbird Jimmy Page and bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, who were on the lookout for musicians to form a new band. Plant recommended his friend, John Bonham, as the drummer – and thus began the story of the greatest hard-rock outfit of all time.
Zeppelin enjoyed huge success right from the start – their self-titled debut album hit the charts in 1969 and for most of the next ten years they toured relentlessly, becoming huge crowd-pullers particularly in the US where they spent most of their time on the road. But the band’s greatest success came with their fourth album which contained classic blues-based rockers such as ‘Black Dog’ and their best known song, ‘Stairway To Heaven’, a sprawling, epic fantasy that drew on folk, blues, and Celtic music as well as rock influences. While never officially released as a single, the song has frequently topped charts as the greatest song of all time on various polls around the world.
After nine successful albums, the band’s demise came swiftly in 1980 after the sudden death of drummer John Bonham from alcohol poisoning. Plant soon launched a successful solo career with his debut album Pictures At Eleven, even scoring a hit single with the song ‘Big Log’, taken from the follow-up, Principle Of Moments. In 1984, he formed a short-lived, all-star outfit with Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck called The Honeydrippers, scoring another top ten hit with the tune ‘Sea Of Love’. Plant has also occasionally performed with both surviving members of Led Zeppelin: in 1985 for Live Aid (with Phil Collins on drums), in 1988 for Atlantic Records' 40th anniversary shindig and in 1995 when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (the last two with Bonham’s son Jason filling in on drums).
But there was always much more to Plant than driving audiences into a frenzy with his guttural growl. His growing interest in world music was reflected in his output and when he reconvened with Jimmy Page for an album, No Quarter and a world tour, he performed Zeppelin classics re-worked with North African, Egyptian and folk roots textures and rhythms. Through the 1980s and 1990s, Plant co-wrote three solo albums with keyboardist/songwriter Phil Johnstone: Now And Zen (1988), Manic Nirvana (1990) and Fate Of Nations (1993). He again collaborated with Jimmy Page on the 1998 album, Walking Into Clarksdale, which features all original material from the pair, their first since the 1980 break-up of Led Zeppelin. (His solo career is neatly encapsulated on the 2003 retrospective Sixty Six To Timbuktu.)
In 2002, Plant formed a new band, Strange Sensation, to work on an album, Dreamland, which consisted of a selection of his favorite ‘60s folk and blues classics. It was followed by Mighty Rearranger, released in 2005 and containing new, original songs. Both albums have received some of the most favourable reviews of Plant’s solo career.
His most recent visit to these shores saw Plant in blistering form, his voice still magisterial and powerful, performing a set-list that encompassed his entire career including re-workings of Zep classics. “They really don’t make them like this anymore,” said the LA Times in a review of a recent show, “a singer with a voice that can rattle the heavens and the bravado to send it into battle against the big themes: war, death, the void, the mysteries of the heart.”