August 20: Robert Anthony Plant, lead singer and songwriter for Led Zeppelin is 65-years-old today.

 

-----

Plant was born in the Black Country town of West Bromwich, England. In 1968, the guitarist Jimmy Page was in search of a lead singer for his new band and met Plant after being turned down by his first choice, Terry Reid. At the time, Plant was singing in a band named Obstweedle.

Plant and Jimmy Page

Plant and Page immediately hit it off with a shared musical passion and began their writing collaboration with reworkings of earlier blues songs. (Plant received no songwriting credits on the band's first album, allegedly because he was still under contract to CBS Records at the time.)

Plant brought along John Bonham as drummer, and they were joined by John Paul Jones, who had previously worked with Page as a studio musician. Jones called Page on the phone before they checked out Plant, and Page hired Jones immediately.

Initially dubbed the "New Yardbirds," in 1968 the band became known as Led Zeppelin. The band's self-titled debut album hit the charts in 1969 and is widely credited as a catalyst for the heavy metal genre. Plant, however, has commented that it is unfair for people to think of Zeppelin as heavy metal, as almost a third of their music was acoustic.

In 2006, heavy metal magazine Hit Parader named Plant #1 on their list of the 100 Greatest Metal Vocalists of All-Time.

Since 2007, Plant has been recording and performing with bluegrass star Alison Krauss. A duet album, Raising Sand, was released on 23 October 2007. On 8 February 2009, Plant and Krauss won Grammy Awards for Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Pop Collaboration with Vocals, Country Collaboration with Vocals, and Contemporary Folk/Americana Album.

In 2008, Rolling Stone named Plant as number 15 on their list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All-Time, and in 2009, he was voted the "greatest voice in rock" in a poll conducted by Planet Rock.

Plant was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours for his "services to popular music." He was included in the Q magazine's 2009 list of "Artists Of The Century" and was ranked at number 8 in their list of "100 Greatest Singers" in 2007.

-----

For more about Robert, visit his Website at-

http://www.robertplant.com/

####