Raise the Roof

Raising Sand, the first collaborative effort between Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, seemed to come from out of the blue in 2007. The pairing of golden rock god and bluegrass troubadour was as unexpected as the album's subdued, nuanced Americana, a sound that existed at the crossroads of the past and the present. It seemed like lightning in a bottle, the kind of magic that couldn't be reproduced, and the subsequent decade or so suggested that suspicion might be true. Plant and Krauss attempted a sequel a couple of times during those ten years, leaving the project behind when the moment didn't seem right. Suddenly, the pieces came together at the end of the 2010s, as Calexico's "Quattro (World Drifts In)" gave Krauss insight into how to proceed with a new record. Soon, she and Plant reunited with producer T-Bone Burnett along with a few Raising Sand session musicians, plus some new hands such as Buddy Miller and Bill Frisell. The resulting Raise the Roof is something of a wonder: a reco