November 29th
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Plant walks into Clarksdale... or Tutwiler
Plant was on hand Tutwiler, Mississippi on the 25th for a historic marker unveiling... from the
Bolivar Commercial.
Plant speaks at marker reveal in Tutwiler
Quintessential rock star Robert Plant emphasized the importance Tutwiler in the history of
blues music at the city’s Mississippi Blues Trail marker unveiling Wednesday.
The Tutwiler blues trail marker honors W. C. Handy and famed Aleck Miller who performed
under the name of Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2. Miller’s grave lies only a mile from the Tutwiler
train station.
Other former Tutwiler performers include banjo and fiddle player Tom Dumas, whose music
harked back to Handy’s era, and pianist Lee Kizart.
Mayor Genether Miller-Spurlock opened the program. Jerome Little, Tallahatchie County
supervisor, presented the invocation followed by remarks from former Tutwiler Mayor Robert
Grayson and state Sen. David Jordan.
“This is remarkable,” said Spurlock. “I have lived here all my life and always heard Tutwiler
called the birthplace of the blues.”
Although Plant’s role in the dedication was kept under wraps until he walked into Tutwiler’s
downtown Railroad Park, the mayor says workers were busy for days preparing the marker site.
The Led Zeppelin superstar and Grammy winner, Plant, talked about visiting Tutwiler numerous
times as a pilgrimage site where Handy first heard blues played outside the depot in 1903.
Plant, a dedicated and passionate blues historian who pays tribute to Mississippi Delta
bluesmen from concert stages around the world, sponsored the event with town officials.
“This gives us recognition,” said Spurlock. “We are very excited and have looked forward to
greeting Mr. Plant and Heritage Trail officials.”
The marker inscription reads: “W. C. Handy encountered a solitary guitar player performing one
of the earliest documented blues songs. Handy, who described the sounds as ‘the weirdest
music I had ever heard,’ later published an adaptation of the song as ‘Yellow Dog Blues,’ and
became known as the ‘Father of the Blues’ after he based many of his popular orchestrations
on the sounds he heard in the Delta.”
Handy described the incident decades later in his 1941 autobiography, ‘Father of the Blues.’
A Clarksdale resident from 1903 to 1905, Handy traveled around the area playing with his
dance orchestra but did not begin to incorporate the blues into his repertoire until he heard the
unidentified guitarist in Tutwiler and a three-piece string band in Cleveland. The year, 1903 is
often given as the likely date of the Tutwiler event.
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of that date, 2003 was chosen as the Year of the Blues.
Handy’s most famous composition, ‘St. Louis Blues,’ ranks as one of the most-recorded songs
in any genre of music.
Volunteers hosted a reception at the Tutwiler Community Education Center. Among the special
reception guests were 25 members of the Tutwiler Senior Citizens Club.
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June 10, 2009
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A ton of updates
This store made the rounds a while ago...from various sources...
Robert Plant Nearly Mauled By Duane Allman
Robert Plant dodged a bullet in the form of the late Duane Allman during Led Zeppelin's first
American tour. In a new revelation, drummer Butch Trucks says that when the Allman Brothers
Band shared a bill with Zeppelin, Duane took strong exception to Plant's "ballet"-like stage
routine and attire.
"Robert Plant starts running all over the stage with his velvet pants on, and we were all looking
at each other, like 'What the f--- is this?'" Trucks told Relix magazine. "It was as much about the
ballet and the costumes as about the music, if not more so."
"Duane got up and said, 'I'm either going to go up there and kick the f--- out of that guy or we're
leaving.' And we all got up and left," Trucks explained. "It just infuriated Duane. He was so let
down by one of his gods."
However while that story was all over the place this one wasn't...
Dickey Betts Says Butch Trucks Fabricated Duane Allman-Robert Plant Feud
Former Allman Brothers guitarist Dickey Betts has blasted the band's drummer Butch Trucks -
accusing him of fabricating a clash between late rock legend Duane Allman and Robert Plant.
In a recent interview with Relix magazine, Trucks recalled Allman's alleged fury over seeing Led
Zeppelin rocker Plant prancing around on stage in velvet trousers during a concert in 1969. He
claimed his former bandmate had to be held back from attacking Plant after the stage antics,
and had lost all respect for his idol.
Trucks said: "Robert Plant starts running all over the stage with his velvet pants on, and we
were all looking at each other, (like) 'What the f--k is this?'
"It was as much about the ballet and the costumes as about the music, if not more so... Duane
got up and said, 'I'm either going to go up there and kick the f-k out of that guy or we're leaving.'
And we all got up and left. It just infuriated Duane. He was so let down by one of his gods."
But Betts, who left the Allman Brothers Band in 2000, is standing up for Allman - insisting the
rocker wasn't "narrow-minded".
He tells the New York Post, "I know Duane didn't feel that way and never said that. We loved
(Led Zeppelin guitarist, Jimmy) Page and those guys. It's ludicrous. And it's not fair to Duane
Allman, who has passed away and can't speak for himself. He had velvet pants himself."
Seems like the story was too good for most of the other press to pick up outside of
Starpulse where that one was posted.
On a side note be working on a couple of cool projects with the site look for them to make their
way onto the site soon..
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March 22, 2009
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Plant works with Buddy and Julie
Robert appears on the Buddy and Julie song called What You Gonna Do, Leroy? From their
recently released album called Written In Chalk.
Raising Sand is now at #43 on the Billboard album charts and #6 on the country charts. Please
Read the Letter made an appearance on the Billboard Bubbling Under charts, (songs that don't
make the top 100). It ended up at number 20, or 120 overall.
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March 15, 2009
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CNN's John Roberts a Plant fan?
Unless you lived in Canada in the 80s you wouldn't have known that CNN Anchor John Roberts
was a Much Music VJ. His favorite interview? Robert Plant. A great read from Jam.
Raising Sand is currently at #26 on the Billboard Album charts and #2 on the Country Charts. By
the way Rich Woman appeared briefly on the hot 100 bubbling under charts. Coming in at 18 or
118 overall on the hot 100.
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February 26, 2009
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Raising Sand still in the top 10
Another week of strong sales with 32,000 units sold. Although not as much as the week before
it does land Raising Sand in the 9th position on the billboard charts this week.
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February 22, 2009
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More interesting post Grammy news
It appears that the moment the Grammy Awards came on downloads for Plant and Krauss
legally and illegally increased. Great article from the New York Times.
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February 18, 2009
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Raising Sand gets a Grammy Bump
In what predicted to be a big gain in sales after their Grammy wins, Plant's and Krauss' Raising
Sand jumped 67 places on the BIllboard Album Charts to number 2 with a 77,000 copies sold.
So far the album has sold over 1.26 million units. The artist that kept them out of the top spot?
Taylor Swift. Even the Grammy Nomination CD (featuring Please Read the Letter) made it into
the Top 10. Here's an article on latest sales.
In the never ending barrage of new articles, here 's a great interview from CNN with Alison and
Robert finding Harmony
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February 15, 2009
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Lots of Grammy Reaction and Comments
It's been quite the week for Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. Some mixed reactions across the
board which is typical after the Grammy Awards. The buzz that's been generated has been
great. Raising Sand reappeared on the Billboard Charts this past week at 69. It could be even
higher next week. It's doing quite well in Australia again too.
Contact Music is reporting the two have started working on a new album, don't expect it to sound
like Raising Sand.
From MSNBC could Plant and Krauss raise Nashville's profile?
A great article the Daily Herald about Plant skipping the money train by avoiding a Led Zeppelin
reunion
One Detroit News critic wasn't big on the Grammy results and this one too from the New Haven
Register. However this critic from the Daily Times in Pennsylvania liked the layout of Sunday's
broadcast.
A rather odd article from MSN about Plant, Zeppelin and Satan. Seems geared those the casual
fan.
And if you missed the predictions for the Grammy Awards, here's an article from before last
week's ceremony from USA Today.
If you missed what it sounded like last weekend, here's some audio from The Grammy
Awards... Plant on winning best Pop Collaboration. Plant on Album of the Year,. Plant backstage
at the Grammy Awards on working with Alison, and the announcement that Raising Sand was
Album of the Year.
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February 10, 2009
Bid on an Autographed Plaque
From the Grammy Organization comes this item:
Official Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Signed CD and Robert Plant Commemorative Plaque!
51st GRAMMY Awards Charity Online Auction
Attention Fans! In celebration of their amazing GRAMMY Nominations, here is your chance to
bid on an amazing copy of “Raising Sand” signed by both Robert Plant and Alison Krauss.
The autographed item is now available on the GRAMMY Charity Online Auction benefiting
MusiCares and the GRAMMY Foundation. Auction runs Feb. 2 – Dec. 19. Click here to place
your bids now!
This is for a good cause and the auction ends in just a couple of days.
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February 8, 2009
Here are some quick articles that have come out on the Grammy Awards. From CNN, Yahoo
CBS and NewsNine (Australia).
Update as of 11:25...
If you get a chance to see Green Day in concert do so... Here we go. Can you believe they did it
Album of the Year! Alison finally speaks, new outfit from earlier. Robert you're correct, it's not
selling out. Congratulations to Robert, Alison, T-Bone and everyone involved in that album.
Update as of 11:19...
This must be running short on time as there was no intro for Zooey Deschanel who introduced
Alison and Robert to perform a medley of songs from Raising Sand first was Rich Woman and
the Gone Gone Gone (with T-Bone's guitar being a little loud at first). Looks like my prediction
of Please Read The Letter was wrong but these songs actually does a better job in featuring
the both of them. By the way have other artists performed medleys when being nominated for
album of the year or could they not decide what to perform. Who would have thought we would
have seen this?
Grammy Update as of 11:10pm EST. 4 out of 4 so far, one more to go...
So far it's been a good night for Robert Plant and Alison Krauss who have scored four Grammy
Awards. Before the CBS Broadcast they won for Best Country Collaboration With Vocals for
Killing The Blues (Amazon/iTunes) and for Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album for
Raising Sand (Amazon) During the broadcast they won for Best Pop Collaboration With
Vocals for the song Rich Woman (Amazon/iTunes) and for Record of the Year for Please Read
The Letter (Amazon/iTunes). Come up in the hour is their performance and also we'll find out
they do for Album of the Year. Robert spoke both times during the acceptance about each of the
songs that won. Alison hasn't said anything but has looked stunning in doing so. We'll see how
the next hour comes along.
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January 30th, 2009
Update... Plant and Krauss will perform at the Grammy Awards
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It was just announced yesterday that Plant and Krauss will perform during
the Grammy Awards show on February 8th. It'll probably be Please Read
The Letter.
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January 27th, 2009
No Plant/Krauss performance at the Grammy Awards. (Updated... see above)
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While a handful of performers have been announced at the Grammy
Award Ceremony on February 8th, there has been no mention of them
performing. Hopefully we'll still catch them in some form at the ceremony
which you can catch on CBS beginning on 8pm. Hopefully Raising Sand
will pick up some awards. It's nice to see the album still doing so well
after all of this time. A win or two on the 8th should even bring more
attention to their work. Please Read the Letter does appear on this year's
Grammy album compilation which was released today.
The recent nominations have helped the album sell a lot of copies, even
recently being the 2nd most download country album on Amazon behind
Taylor Swift and according to Soundscan the album has sold 1.1 million
copies.
While not in the top 100. Led Zeppelin's Mothership is sitting on the charts
in at number 98.
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Queen names Robert Plant CBE
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From various news sources came the news back in early January that
Queen Elizabeth II has named singer Robert Plant a Commander of the
Order of the British Empire. The monarch bestowed the honor on the
rocker on January 2nd.
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Looking for news from 2008? Click here.
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