Robert Plant: #1 in Classical Charts

Robert Plant has had a lot of accolades and accomplishments over his 40+ year career, but it's likely even he would never have thought #1 in the classical charts would be one of them. Yet that's the case this week as Alfie Boe's album Alfie, featuring a duet with Plant doing Song to the Siren, debuted on the Billboards charts at number one last week.

While the album and song are now available for download in North America, in Britain you could download it via iTunes last November, and I did:

The revelation is Plant. Not that he can sing, of course, but that his voice works so well in the style with which this song is done.  Plant has changed his singing style dramatically over the last ten years - maybe it’s even fair to say five. Nowhere does the positive aspects of that change come across as well as it does singing next to a very musical operatic singer.

An Alfie Boe and Robert Plant duet is, to use a phrase I frankly don’t like, outside the box. Yet it works far better than I expect most fans of either artist expected it to.

It can now be downloaded via iTunes, or click the link below to get it on Amazon.

Robert Plant and Alfie Boe: Fair or Foul

Even though the official release date is still a few days away, if you live in the UK you can download the Alfie Boe and Robert Plant duet, Song to the Siren, from iTunes now.

As it's not available by means fair or foul outside the UK, here in Canada I can only speculate that it is a surprisingly good duet. Boe is a magnificent singer, and Song to the Siren is in his wheelhouse.

The revelation is Plant. Not that he can sing, of course, but that his voice works so well in the style with which this song is done.  Plant has changed his singing style dramatically over the last ten years - maybe it's even fair to say five. Nowhere does the positive aspects of that change come across as well as it does singing next to a very musical operatic singer.

An Alfie Boe and Robert Plant duet is, to use a phrase I frankly don't like, outside the box. Yet it works far better than I expect most fans of either artist expected it to. Wether Alfie Boe can sing Black Dog remains to be seen, but this combination works.

At least that's what I might say, if I had means to access the iTunes download. If only I had relatives in the UK to do a £1 favour for me.

A New Duet Partner for Robert Plant

Ever since teaming up with Alison Krauss in 2007, Robert Plant has been singing more in duet style than as a front man. First with the Plant Krauss album, Raising Sand, and following that up with The Band of Joy, where he shared vocal duties with Patty Griffin.

Meanwhile, his Led Zeppelin partner John Paul Jones was appearing in an opera based on the life of Anna Nichole Smith and talking about writing his own opera. But nobody saw this one coming.

Robert Plant will appear on tenor Alfie Boe's latest collection, Alfie. The opera star and Plant combine on Tim Buckley's 1968 piece, Song To The Siren. Plant previously recorded Song to the Siren in 2002's Alfie, with his then band Strange Sensation, and Plant has often talked about the song as a favourite of his. Now it appears it will get a different treatment.

Boe is currently playing Jean Valjean in Les Misérables at the Queen's Theatre in London. His new album, Alfie, will be released November 8th.