Full name, Robert Anthony Plant; born August 20, 1948, in Bromwich, Staffordshire, England; married wife, Maureen, c. 1969; children: Carmen, Logan Romero (a second son, Karac, died in 1977). Addresses: Record Company-- c/o Phil Carson, Atlantic Records, 75 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10019.

With the 1988 release of Now And Zen, Robert Plant celebrated his twentieth anniversary as a reigning vocalist of hard rock. Plant has been at rock music's forefront since he joined Led Zeppelin in 1968. His best-known songs, including "Stairway to Heaven" and "Whole Lotta Love," are classics that remain the definitive expressions of early 1970s rock. Since the 1980 demise of Led Zeppelin, Plant has undertaken a solo career that reflects his mature but ongoing interest in his chosen genre; Now and Zen has received better reviews than any of his Led Zeppelin work and heralds new directions for the thoughtful rocker. Plant told People magazine that when his group disbanded, after many well-publicized disasters, he still had the ambition to make good music. "My intention was to go in the complete reverse direction from sliding into obscurity," he said. "After the end of Zeppelin, I didn't really see anything. But as time went on, I started to pick up the pieces." Now, touring on his own to sellout crowds, Plant has proven himself an artist "with deep roots in the music's past but a lively interest in its present--and future--as well," to quote Rolling Stone reviewer Kurt Loder.

In early 1968 Plant was an obscure singer with a band called Hobbstweedle, based in England's Midlands region. Rolling Stone contributor Stephen Davis describes the British teenager as "a great tall blond geezer who looked like a fairy prince and possessed a caterwauling voice. They called him the Wild Man of Blues from the Black Country." Plant's name came to the attention of Jimmy Page of the Yardbirds; Page was trying to start a new band and needed a charismatic lead singer. Page and some friends travelled to Birmingham to hear Plant perform at an obscure teacher's college. Plant amazed them with his keening soprano, so out of context with his tall, rugged physique. "It unnerved me just to listen," Davis quotes Page as saying. "It still does, like a primeval wail." Davis notes that before too long Page was convinced that Plant had the very voice he needed, one with a "distinctive, highly charged, sexual quality." Plant accepted the opportunity to work with Page and convinced his friend John Bonham to join the group, too. In October of 1968 Led Zeppelin was founded, with Plant, Page, Bonham, and John Paul Jones.

People correspondent Jim Jerome writes: "From its launch in 1968, Led Zeppelin figured to be testing the dubious proposition that heavy metal could be lighter than air. Yet through the mellower-than-thou '70s, rock's fiercest foursome was more than buoyant: Led Zep sold some 40 million LPs worldwide [and] set concert attendance records all over the planet." Plant hit his stride as a lyricist while in the group, composing songs such as "Kashmir," "Black Dog," "Misty Mountain Hop," and the winsome "Stairway to Heaven," based on ancient Celtic legends. Davis claims: "With its starkly pagan imagery of trees and brooks, pipers and the May Queen, shining white light and the forest echoing with laughter, ?"Stairway to Heaven"? seemed to be an invitation to abandon the new traditions and follow the old gods. It expressed a yearning for spiritual transformation deep in the hearts of a new generation. In time, it became Led Zeppelin's anthem."

Unfortunately, in a tradition they helped to spawn, the members of Zeppelin conducted themselves with reckless hedonism while on tour, abusing alcohol and drugs and indulging their sexual appetites with ever-willing female fans. Plant told Rolling Stone that he recalls few details from those days. "I can remember a stream of carpenters walking into a room as we were checking out," he said. "We'd be going out one way, and they'd be going in the other way, with a sign, CLOSED FOR REMODELING, being put on the door. It's kind of embarrassing. But without being too facetious, that's what people wanted. Once the seed was sown, it would be terrible if it was just once a week. It had to be all the time."

Dire predictions followed such excessive behavior, and indeed the group began to be plagued with extreme bad luck. As Davis puts it, by 1975 "the old Zeppelin carnival atmosphere had dissipated. There were strange portents in the air." In that year Plant and his family were involved in an automobile accident; two years later, Plant's young son died suddenly of a severe respiratory infection. A certain rivalry had always existed in Led Zeppelin--especially between Plant and Page--and this too escalated. The group finally split up in 1980 following the alcohol-induced death of Bonham, a blow that hit Plant particularly hard. Plant told People that Bonham's death "was one of the most flattening, heartbreaking parts of my life.... It was so final. I never even thought about the future of the band or music." When he began to recover, however, Plant returned to the stage with one determination--he would not be content to rehash the Zeppelin classics for the rest of his career. "I went out and stifled whatever cries there were--not the least of them from myself--for Zeppelin material," he said. "People don't want to let go of something they loved so much. It's a shame to say goodbye."

"Scorned by the punks and embarrassed by cheap Zeppelin imitators, Plant spent his first three solo albums roaming the shifting terrain of Eighties rock in search of an identity that had nothing to do with lemon squeezing or 'Stairway to Heaven,'" notes David Fri in Rolling Stone. "He never found it. He had a couple of hits along the trail, like 'Big Log,' from his 1983 album The Principle of Moments. But for all of their adventuresome drive and hip future-rock angularity, Plant's solo records in general lacked the unbridled passion and risky spontaneity of Zeppelin in full flight." Undaunted by the new critical indifference to his work, Plant continued to experiment. One such lark, a five-track EP called The Honeydrippers, Volume One, went platinum in 1985. In that short set of songs, culled from vintage rhythm and blues tunes, Plant was joined by Page, Jeff Beck, and pianist Paul Shaffer, among others. All were surprised by the success of The Honeydrippers, but, courageously, all decided not to proceed exclusively in that direction.

Plant returned to his solo career, forming his own backup band and trying his best not to load his concerts with Zeppelin songs. His fourth solo album, Now and Zen, was a critical and commercial hit. "This record is some kind of stylistic event: a seamless pop fusion of hard guitar rock, gorgeous computerization and sharp, startling songcraft," writes Loder. "[It] is so rich in conceptual invention that you barely notice that Plant sings better on it--with more tone, control and rhythmic acuity--than he has in the seven years since Led Zeppelin imploded. Better, in some ways, than ever."

With the success of Now and Zen, Plant has softened toward his Zeppelin music and has added a substantial amount of it to his concert sets. "I wanted to establish an identity that was far removed from the howling and the mud sharks of the Seventies," he told Rolling Stone. "So if I go onstage now and sing 'Misty Mountain Hop,' it's cool because I've given it the time in between. I can come out and do it without having traded on it all the way down the line." Asked if he is pleased about the enduring popularity of Led Zeppelin music, Plant concluded: "When I look back, I don't get any sense of great achievement out of the fact that people still like [the music] a lot. I get achievement out of the fact that it was good."

by Anne Janette Johnson

Robert Plant's Career

Rock singer/songwriter, c. 1965--. Prior to 1968, played with Hobbstweedle, Band of Joy, Alexis Korner. Joined Led Zeppelin, 1968, member until 1980 (other band members were: John Bonham, drums; Jimmy Page, guitar; John Paul Jones, bass, keyboards). Founded the Honeydrippers, 1985. Solo artist, 1980--(current backup band includes: Charlie Jones, bass; Chris Blackwell, drums; Doug Boyle, guitar; Phil Johnstone, keyboards). Performed in film The Song Remains the Same, 1976.

Famous Works

Recent Updates

June 12, 2005: Plant appeared with Peter Gabriel and Annie Lennox in Nelson Mandela's 46664 Arctic Concert, an AIDs relief concert held in Tromsoe, the main city of Norway's Arctic. Source: USA Today, www.usatoday.com/life/digest.htm, June 13, 2005.

Further Reading

Books

Periodicals

Visitor Comments Add a comment…