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Holistic Guidance - Raising Sand
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List Price: $18.98
Our Price: $11.99
Your Save: $ 6.99 ( 37% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Rounder
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0011661907522
Label: Rounder
Manufacturer: Rounder
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Rounder
Release Date: 2007-10-23
Studio: Rounder
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Editorial Reviews:
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Perhaps only the fantasy duo of King Kong and Bambi could be a more bizarre pairing than Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. Yet on Raising Sand, their haunting and brilliant collaboration, the Led Zeppelin screamer and Nashville's most hypnotic song whisperer seem made for each other. This, however, is not the howling Plant of "Whole Lotta Love," but a far more precise and softer singer than even the one who emerged with Dreamland (2002). No matter that Plant seems so subdued as to be on downers, for that's one of the keys to this most improbable meeting of musical galaxies--almost all of it seems slowed down, out of time, otherworldly, and at times downright David Lynch-ian, the product of an altered consciousness. Yet probably the main reason it all works so well is the choice of producer T Bone Burnette, the third star of the album, who culled mostly lesser-known material from some of the great writers of blues, country, folk, gospel, and R&B, including Tom Waits, Townes Van Zandt, Milt Campbell, the Everly Brothers, Sam Phillips, and A.D. and Rosa Lee Watson. At times, Burnette's spare and deliberate soundscape--incisively crafted by guitarists Marc Ribot and Norman Blake, bassist Dennis Crouch, drummer Jay Bellerose, and multi-instrumentalist Mike Seeger, among others--is nearly as dreamy and subterranean as Daniel Lanois's work with Emmylou Harris (Wrecking Ball). Occasionally, Burnette opts for a fairly straightforward production while still reworking the original song (Plant's own "Please Read the Letter," Mel Tillis's "Stick with Me, Baby"). But much of the new flesh on these old bones is oddly unsettling, if not nightmarish. On the opening track of "Rich Woman," the soft-as-clouds vocals strike an optimistic mood, while the instrumental backing--loose snare, ominous bass line, and insinuating electric guitar lines--create a spooky, sinister undertow. Plant and Krauss trade out the solo and harmony vocals, and while they both venture into new waters here (Krauss as a mainstream blues mama, Plant as a gospel singer and honkytonker), she steals the show in Sam Phillips' new "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us," where a dramatic violin and tremulous banjo strike a foreboding gypsy tone. When Krauss begins this strange, seductive song in a voice so ethereal that angels will take note, you may stop breathing. That, among other reasons, makes Raising Sand an album to die for. --Alanna Nash
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Comment: Two great artists but they just croon... effort came out vapid and flat. Too Mellow.
Customer Rating:
Summary: After all these years...
Comment: two people I've followed individually have made this supremely heavenly album that I simply cannot qualify; it reflects an amalgum of strange purity that exceeds a mere collaboration. Words fail me...
Customer Rating:
Summary: A beautiful album
Comment: A beautiful, relaxing album with plenty of interesting sounds. I've become addicted to it!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Bill's Fifty Words or Less
Comment: Tennessee mountains,
Mississippi mud,
Honeysuckle wine and
Texas blood.
Rhododendron blooms,
Rusty nails,
Empty rooms and
Mournful wails.
Church door cracks,
Long dusty roads,
Broken hearts and
Heavy loads.
Sneering guitars,
Rattling bones,
Voices from heaven,
Black snake moan.
Funeral cortege and
A Harley ride home.
Mesmerizing Alt-country-bluegrass-rockabilly-gospel-blues Masterwork.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Unexpected classic.....
Comment: "Raising Sand" is the haunting and brilliant collaboration between Robert Plant and Allison Krauss; it opens with my favorite track - the Sam Phillips song "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us", which quickly demonstrates that there's a lot more going on here than the "Led Zeppelin goes Country" preconception that the notion of these two artists working together conjures up. The album continues with track after track enjoyment and surprise. This is yet another triumph for producer T Bone Burnett, who has incisively crafted a breath-taking soundscape, supported by some of the finest musicians working today, where the whole is deliriously more than the sum of the parts. It all sounds so effortless that you know it must have been quite the opposite - dreamy and seductive, this is an unexpected classic.
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