‘Raising Sand‘ is a fine album – we all know that, from its sales most of us must have 2 or 3 copies at least. Well, this preview, the last and final preview before the release on November 19th, of the new album ‘Raise the Roof‘ makes a strong case that the sequel may outshine the original. The song, of course, is Bert Jansch’s from the album of the same name. And we have to share two comments, one we can only wholeheartedly applaud and the other we admit raised a Spock like eyebrow. See if you can guess which is which. Robert Plant has explained the choice of this song by saying: “I’ve been a big follower of Bert Jansch’s work since I was a teenager, and of that whole Irish, Scottish, English folk style that has a different lilt and different lyrical perspective. I was very keen to bring some of that into the picture.” And the Golden Voiced Alison Krauss has elucidated her thoughts: “One of my favourite parts of this is the songs and songwriters that I had never heard of, working with Robert, and with T Bone, is always a great education in music history.”
Ok.
Here’s the song then – and it is truly the most magnificent reworking of Bert’s growling solo original. This is so very, very good. Never heard of Bert Jansch? WTF? But should a listen to this splendid track encourage the listener to revisit their Bert Jansch albums then that would be no bad thing and surely, in part, what Robert Plant was hoping for. So, it’s all good. We’d recommend heading for the eponymous (and poorly paid ) debut, ‘It don’t bother me‘ (of course), ‘Bert & John‘, ‘Jack Orion‘, ‘L.A. Turnaround‘, just everything with Pentangle and the same goes for Anne Briggs. And then…well there’s a fair few more albums to explore, are there not? There are.
