Alison Krauss, Robert Plant Defy Predictions

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss photo by Pamela Springsteen, courtesy of Rounder Records.

July 22, 2008 — Alison Krauss and Robert Plant just concluded the primary section of their Raising Sand Tour, which earned reams of positive reviews just months after the pair won a Grammy for their recording of "Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)."

Recorded with O Brother, Where Art Thou? producer T Bone Burnett, the Raising Sand album reached No. 2 on the Billboard Country Albums chart and appeared on numerous critics’ best-of-2007 lists. The video likewise made GAC’s Top 20 Country Countdown. All of that was a bonus for Alison and Robert, because they had no idea whether the pairing of a bluegrass queen and an ex-Led Zeppelin rocker would go over.

"I don't remember any of us really hoping for anything," Alison told The Tennessean. "We were looking for a good time. With T Bone, Robert and myself, it was something very different than what we've done. It was, 'Let's go see what this is like.' "

It was, Robert felt, a risky move, in part because he had no idea if one of the pioneers of hard-rock music really belonged in a more laidback Nashville musical setting. He got the respect of his peers for the effort, and that meant as much as anything.

"Whether it ended up in the dollar bargain bin, it doesn't matter, especially for me right now in my time," he explained. "I was just part of something that I couldn't even imagine, and I actually fit in."

The two have more dates slated for September and October, and they’ve talked publicly about working on another project in the future.