Robert Plant “Band of Joy”

Today’s Cool Album Of the Day (#294 in the Series) is Robert Plant, Band of Joy.

Robert Plant? Think about this one…. How many artists from his era are still releasing strong, relevant music at this stage of their careers? Sure, we get some dynamite tours from some of them.  However, for most of them, if they play their latest albums on those tours what you’ll usually find is that the restrooms are at capacity when they play them.

Not Robert Plant, his work before this was the extremely popular album with Alison Krauss called Raising Sand. It only won about five Grammys!  He’s reinvented himself the last decade and done it with-out going the Rod Stewart route.

Band of Joy was released in September of 2010. This is actually the second go around for him and a band with that name. He first had a ‘Band of Joy’ in 1965 thru ’68.  (There was also a ‘BoJ’ in ’77 but it did not include Plant.)

Here he covers tracks by Los Lobos and Richard and Linda Thompson. He also does a great rendition on Townes Van Zandt’s ‘Harm’s Swift Way.’

As of this writing Band of Joy has reached as high as #5 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart. I’m not going to use the term ‘peaked’ as of yet since the album is still current.

‘Angel Dance’ did, however, peak at #47 on the Hot 100 Singles chart.

Track listing

1. “Angel Dance”  (David Hidalgo, Louie Perez)  3:50
2. “House of Cards”  (Richard Thompson ) 3:14
3. “Central Two-O-Nine” (Robert Plant, Buddy Miller) 2:49
4. “Silver Rider”  (Zachary Micheletti, Mimi Parker, Alan Sparhawk) 6:06
5. “You Can’t Buy My Love” (Billy Babineaux, Bobby Babineaux) 3:11
6. “Falling in Love Again” (Dillard Crume, Andrew Kelly) 3:38
7. “The Only Sound That Matters” (Gregory Vanderpool )3:45
8. “Monkey” (Micheletti, Parker, Sparhawk) 4:58
9. “Cindy, I’ll Marry You Someday”  (Traditional, arranged by Plant, Miller) 3:37
10. “Harm’s Swift Way” (Townes Van Zandt) 4:19
11. “Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down” (Traditional, arranged by Plant, Miller) 4:12
12. “Even This Shall Pass Away”  (Theodore Tilton, arranged by Plant, Miller) 4:03

Personnel

• Bekka Bramlett – backing vocals
• Marco Giovino – drums, percussion, backing vocals
• Patty Griffin – vocals, backing vocals
• Byron House – bass guitar, double bass
• Buddy Miller – electric guitar, baritone guitar, 6-string bass guitar, mandoguitar, backing vocals
• Robert Plant – lead vocals, backing vocals
• Darrell Scott – acoustic guitar, mandolin, octave mandolin, banjos, accordion, pedal steel guitar & lap steel guitar, backing vocals

Links

• See other members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that we’ve featured.
• See other album from 2010 that we’ve featured.
• Official Band of Joy Wesbsite
• Band of Joy 2011 Tour Schedule

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