Robert Plant has announced the release of “Saving Grace“, the first album featuring a new band of players, which he calls “a song book of the lost and found” – it arrives September 26th on Nonesuch Records and you can listen to the first single to be released from it below.
The genesis of the album began during the lockdown, when Plant’s customary wandering was all but forbidden. While his recent adventures have centred around Nashville, having reunited with Alison Krauss for 2021’s chart-topping, multi-GRAMMY-nominated “Raise The Roof“, it was in the English countryside that Robert Plant connected closely to this new and diverse group of musicians. Together, Plant and Saving Grace (the band) – vocalist Suzi Dian, drummer Oli Jefferson, guitarist Tony Kelsey, banjo and string player Matt Worley, cellist Barney Morse-Brown – have spent the past six years experimenting and developing a huge range of sounds and styles whilst trying to forge their own unique identity as a collective.
“We laugh a lot, really. I think that suits me. I like laughing,” Plant says. “You know, I can’t find any reason to be too serious about anything. I’m not jaded. The sweetness of the whole thing… These are sweet people, and they are playing out all the stuff that they could never get out before. They have become unique stylists, and together they seem to have landed in a most interesting place.”
Following his previous acclaimed releases on Nonesuch Records – 2014’s “Lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar” and 2017’s “Carry Fire“, this album and band are yet another chapter of Robert Plant’s seemingly ceaseless musical curiosity and creativity. Produced by Plant and the band and recorded between April 2019 and January 2025 in the Cotswolds and on the Welsh Borders the album features a treasury of songs featured back in time by Memphis Minnie, Bob Mosley (Moby Grape), Blind Willie Johnson, The Low Anthem, Martha Scanlan, Sarah Siskind, and Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk’s Low.
Tracklist as follows, and the album can be preordered here.
Robert Plant “Saving Grace” Tracklist:
1. Chevrolet
2. As I Roved Out
3. It’s A Beautiful Day Today
4. Soul Of A Man
5. Ticket Taker
6. I Never Will Marry
7. Higher Rock
8. Too Far From You
9. Everybody’s Song
10. Gospel Plough
Thanks Keith! That truly is great news about an album and maybe another tour(?) from Plant and this fantastic band. Seeing them last year in Bristol was a genuine highlight.