Robert Plant and Alison Krauss have announced their upcoming studio album, Raise The Roof – a 12-track effort that will see the pair line up alongside an impressive list of electric guitar heavyweights.
Set to be released on November 19, the effort sees Plant and Krauss recruit six-string slingers Marc Ribot, David Hidalgo, Bill Frisell and Buddy Miller, with pedal steel player Russ Pahl joining the fold.
Drummer Jay Bellerose and bass guitar players Dennis Crouch and Viktor Krauss are also set to feature, with previous Plant/Krauss producer T Bone Burnett heading up production duties for the record.
To usher in the news, the pair have also shared the record’s lead single, a cover of the Randy Weeks-written track Can’t Let Go, which was first recorded by Lucinda Williams in 1998.
Swapping the swampy acoustic guitar parts of the original rendition for a Western-esque electric guitar melody, Krauss and the former Led Zeppelin singer spend the duration of the track flexing their celebrated, range-exploring vocal chemistry.
Raise The Roof will be the duo’s first collaborative project in 14 years since the release of 2007’s Raising Sand, which debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 and went on to scoop six Grammy awards.
The album's tracklist will feature a number of cuts composed by “legends and unsung heroes”, including songs from Merle Haggard, Allen Toussaint, The Everly Brothers, Anne Briggs, Geeshie Wiley, Bert Jansch and more.
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Other notable additions include a Plant/Burnett original, High and Lonesome, with the rock icon citing English folk traditions and inspirations as the driving forces behind assembling the album’s material.
Of the record, Krauss commented, “We wanted it to move. We brought other people in, other personalities within the band, and coming back together again in the studio brought a new intimacy to the harmonies.”
"You hear something and you go, 'Man, listen to that song, we got to sing that song!'” added Plant. “It's a vacation, really – the perfect place to go that you least expected to find."
You can find the Raise The Roof tracklist below:
- Quattro (World Drifts In)
- The Price of Love
- Go Your Way
- Trouble With My Lover
- Searching for My Love
- Can't Let Go
- It Don't Bother Me
- You Led Me to The Wrong
- Last Kind Words Blues
- High and Lonesome
- Going Where the Lonely Go
- Somebody Was Watching Over Me
Raise The Roof is available to preorder now ahead of its November 19 release.
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Matt is a Senior Staff Writer, writing for Guitar World, Guitarist and Total Guitar. He has a Masters in the guitar, a degree in history, and has spent the last 16 years playing everything from blues and jazz to indie and pop. When he’s not combining his passion for writing and music during his day job, Matt records for a number of UK-based bands and songwriters as a session musician.
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