Robert Plant: Band of Joy, a Midlands college gig and Led Zeppelin | Highway to Hell

Why fans still care

ROBERT PLANT gave Led Zeppelin its scream, then spent the rest of his career finding out what else his voice could do. Stairway to Heaven, with his words, is the band’s most-streamed song. Nearly 40 years after Whole Lotta Love, a quiet record of duets with a bluegrass singer won him Album of the Year. He’s still touring, now with a folk band.

Early life

He was born in West Bromwich in 1948 and grew up in the West Midlands. By the mid-1960s he was singing in local bands. With Listen he cut You Better Run in 1966, which he says started what he later called his “tough, manly approach to singing”. In the Crawling King Snakes and then Band of Joy, his drummer was John Bonham, Who’s Who number 6, later his bandmate in Led Zeppelin.

Career chapters

1. 1966You Better Run, with Listen
2. Mid-1960s to 1968the Crawling King Snakes and Band of Joy, with John Bonham
3. 20 July 1968Jimmy Page sees him sing at a Midlands college
4. 1968the New Yardbirds, soon Led Zeppelin
5. 1969 to 1979Led Zeppelin’s run of albums
6. 1982Pictures at Eleven, his first solo album
7. 1983Big Log
8. 1999Grammy for Most High, with Page
9. 2007Raising Sand, with Alison Krauss
10. 2009five Grammys, and a CBE
11. 2012Kennedy Center Honors
12. 2025Saving Grace, with Suzi Dian

The Midlands bands mid-1960s to 1968

With Listen he made You Better Run. In the Crawling King Snakes and Band of Joy he sang over Bonham, a drummer he’d later tell Page was more “dynamic” than anyone he had seen.

Led Zeppelin 1968 to 1980

Page first went after Terry Reid. On 20 July 1968 he saw Plant sing at a teacher-training college in the Midlands. Plant told him about Bonham, and the new band, still called the New Yardbirds, had Page, John Paul Jones, Plant and Bonham. Plant called the first rehearsal “overwhelming”. Through the 1970s he sang on records like Led Zeppelin II and the untitled fourth album, and wrote the words to its Stairway to Heaven. The band ended in 1980.

Going solo 1982 to 1990s

Pictures at Eleven reached number 2 in the UK in 1982. The Principle of Moments followed in 1983 with Big Log, his biggest solo single, number 11 in the UK and 20 in the US. Now and Zen got to number 10. In the 1990s he worked with Page again. Their No Quarter reached UK number 7, and Most High won the Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance at the 1999 ceremony.

Raising Sand and after 2005 to 2017

Mighty Rearranger made UK number 4 in 2005. Then came the left turn. Raising Sand, with bluegrass singer Alison Krauss, came out on 23 October 2007. It reached number 2 in both the US and the UK and went Platinum. On 8 February 2009 it won five Grammys, including Album of the Year, with Please Read the Letter as Record of the Year. Later solo records kept charting at home: Band of Joy at 3, Lullaby and the Ceaseless Roar at 2, Carry Fire at 3.

Saving Grace 2019 to 2026

His current band, Saving Grace, has Suzi Dian sharing the vocals. Their album Saving Grace came out on Nonesuch on 26 September 2025. It was recorded between April 2019 and January 2025 in the Cotswolds and on the Welsh Borders, and reached UK number 4 and number 1 on the Americana chart. Plant calls it “a song book of the lost and found”. In 2026 the band toured the US as Up the Sharp End.

Craft, sound and style

The early scream

John Paul Jones remembered a “screaming maniac” at the first jam. Plant has been hard on that early voice since. He now finds his vocal on Babe I’m Gonna Leave You “horrific”. The turning point, as he tells it, was Friends on Led Zeppelin III in 1970, when he worked out that the tough approach wasn’t “what it was all about”.

The stance

That arched back on stage was partly a hedge. He has said he leaned back because he wasn’t sure he would hit the high note. He kept the microphone at a distance too, just in case it didn’t come off.

Big Log and the drum machine

Big Log was written at Rockfield Studios in Wales. Plant put a Roland TR-808 drum machine on it to soften the song, and didn’t like the machine at first.

Learning harmony

Alison Krauss has said Plant “had never been a harmony singer” before Raising Sand.

Stories people still tell

1. The Kennedy Center night.

   When Led Zeppelin received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012, Foo Fighters, Kid Rock and Lenny Kravitz, Ultimate Guitarist Reunion number 39, played their songs.

Legacy

Led Zeppelin entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, presented by Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, Who’s Who number 22, of Aerosmith. Plant was made a CBE for services to music in 2009. “I owe everything to the musicians I work with,” he said that year.