Robert Plant & Saving Grace With Suzi Dian
Saving Grace
★★★★
NONESUCH
Birthed via a Black Country communion which saw Robert Plant and his new, largely unknown bandmates enjoy a lengthy courtship off-radar, Saving Grace feels guileless, almost serendipitous.
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READ MORE: Robert Plant Interviewed: “To do it for the sake of it was never what Led Zeppelin were about…”
What might happen, Plant mused, if he shipped what he’d learned from T Bone Burnett, Alison Krauss et al home and duetted on choice blues, alt-country and folk covers with Brum-born former music teacher, Suzi Dian? Across 10 intimate songs deftly ornamented by guitarists Matt Worley and Tony Kelsey and cellist Barney Morse-Brown, magic happens.
As much avuncular vibe-master as Golden God, Plant cedes some lead vocal terrain to Dian (Too Far From You) and Worley (Blind Willie Johnson’s Soul Of A Man) while bringing extra gravitas to The Low Anthem’s Ticket Taker, blowing raw harp, and re-inventing Low’s Everybody’s Song as a psychedelic raga. This is Plant as enthused musicologist, sharing inspirations, passing batons.
Saving Grace is out September 26 on Nonesuch.
ORDER: Amazon | Rough Trade | HMV
Tracklist:
1. Chevrolet
2. As I Roved Out
3. It’s A Beautiful Day Today
4. Soul Of A Man
5. Ticket Taker
6. I Never Will Marry
7. Higher Rock
8. Too Far From You
9. Everybody's Song
10. Gospel Plough
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