ReZoom

We made it through another year and there was plenty of great rock, country and blues to celebrate.

Don’t pack away those holiday CDs yet. We’ve been tossing alot of great winter music that can help us through the cold, bleak, tunelessmonths ahead.

Against the Grain

Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones grace the cover of Rolling Stone with their Led Zeppelin reunion, but Plant's real supergroup of 2007 teams him with the GRAMMY-winningest bluegrass diva. There have been lots of great albums in the second half of 2007, from Springsteen’s Magic to John Fogerty’s Revival, but the one stuck on my iPod has been Raising Sand (Rounder), from Plant and Alison Krauss. The CD came out too late to be considered for album of the year honors, but the single "Gone, 
Gone, Gone" made the GRAMMY deadline - and the list of nominees - for Best Pop Collaboration. Given Alison's winning streak, it's a sure winner.
Now, at first glance, Raising Sand is a little like those pro-wrestling matchups – Heavy Metal God Vs. the Bluegrass Angel. But it’s not really such an odd coupling.

For one, Plant has always had a far more eclectic approach to music than the legions of hard-rockers following in his wake. With Led Zeppelin’s Mothership burning up iTunes, go deeper into the catalog and see how often they put folk in the mix, whether it’s Brit folk diva Sandy Denny on “The Battle of Evermore” or Jimmy Page plunking banjo on “Gallows Pole.” That tension between acoustic and electric got lost along the way in metal, but Plant has deep roots.Read More