Old Dog, New Tricks

The old rock shouter and the Bluegrass siren of "O Brother where are thou" - could be interesting, I thought, even though I usually first confront duets a little skeptical. But first, are true duets on this CD is the exception rather than the rule, secondly takes Plant permanently enormous back and thirdly harmonize the voices and musical backgrounds of the two - certainly also thanks to the delicate production T Bone Burnett - remarkably well. Plant has always had indeed an extremely wide musical horizons and blues and folk were too LedZep times enormously important parts of his repertoire, the jump to the Bluegrass is because not so far. And what exceptional singer he is still he proves impressively here.
On the album there are almost only foreign compositions (if you times of "Please Read The Letter" from the Page / Plant album "Walking into Clarksdale" apart). My personal favorites are the Plant incredibly slowly and quietly put forward ballad "Polly Come Home" by ex-Byrd Gene Clark, the Allen Toussaint number (published under the pseudonym Naomi Neville) "Fortune Teller" (interpreted by The Who already times ), but then once "disappointed" with almost Santana-like guitar outro and Townes Van Zandt-piece "Nothin ', which begins with a distorted guitar riff expectations of listeners from almost geflüstereten voice Plants and easily verzertten Fiddel Krauss' dominated and tilts in a somber, majestic mood - emotionally for me something like "Kashmir Light".
In the booklet Plant T Bone Burnett thanked and the Blue Crew "who steered an old dog new tricks to". I would add, the old dog has his new tricks but also learned damn good. Five stars is to me almost too little.