|
PICTURES AT ELEVEN, SHAKEN N STIRRED, MANIC NIRVANA,
FATE OF NATIONS and MIGHTY REARRANGER will be released
in expanded
& re-mastered format on Tuesday, March 20th. THE PRINCIPLE
OF MOMENTS,
THE HONEYDRIPPERS, NOW & ZEN and DREAMLAND will be
released on
Tuesday, April 3rd in expanded & re-mastered format
as well.
Plant began his solo career in 1982 with PICTURES AT
ELEVEN. Backed by a
group that included guitarist Robbie Blunt and drummer
Phil Collins Plant
created an eclectic mix of soundscapes that openly eschewed
rehashing Led
Zeppelin's hard rock legacy. Peaking at #5 on the Billboard
Album chart,
Plant's debut featured the single "Burning Down One
Side." Playing with new
musicians after 12 years with Led Zeppelin was hard at
first, "but it
turned out to be a lot easier than I had envisioned,"
Plant explains in the
liner notes. "I found I wanted to pour out my soul
once the door was open.
From then on I was ready to work with anybody." The
expanded version
includes a pair of bonus songs: "Far Post" and
a live version of the album
track "Like I've Never Been Gone," recorded
in Houston in 1983.
THE PRINCIPLE OF MOMENTS, Plants' sophomore solo album,
refined the sound
of its predecessor and built on the group's songwriting
chemistry to create
a personal and intense collection of songs. The single,
"Big Log," cracked
Billboard's Top 20 and became Plant's first solo hit.
The album also
featured the songs "In The Mood," "Other
Arms" and "Horizontal Departure."
The expanded version includes live performances of "In
The Mood" and "Thru'
With The Two Step," a cover of Bob Marley's "Lively
Up Yourself" and the
previously unreleased track "Turnaround."
Plant changed pace completely in 1984 with THE HONEYDRIPPERS:
VOLUME ONE,
an EP that celebrated Plant's first musical love with
covers of rock from
of the '50s and '60s featuring guest appearances by Jeff
Beck and Jimmy
Page. A tantalizingly small collection of gems, the album
featured five
tracks including Ray Charles' "I Got A Woman,"
Roy Brown's "Rockin' At
Midnight" and a song that became an international
hit for Plant, a cover of
"Sea Of Love." The expanded version includes
a live version of "Rockin' At
Midnight."
Plant returned in 1985 with another sonic departure,
SHAKEN 'N' STIRRED.
Joined by former Little Feat drummer Ritchie Hayward,
Plant recorded an
album that was both musically innovative and yet of its
time. "It was
important to get away from the standard idea of rock,"
Plant writes in the
liner notes. "It's the feel of the time, it's the
adventure of music at the
time, and the adventure of the technology." The album,
which reached
Billboard's Top 20, includes the hit singles "Little
By Little" and "Sixes
And Sevens." The expanded version includes a remixed
version of "Little By
Little."
NOW AND ZEN - Plant's 1988 album - marked a new beginning
that saw him
embracing his musical past while moving forward. Inspired
by his powerhouse
band - including keyboardist and songwriting partner Phil
Johnstone,
drummer Chris Blackwell, bassist Phil Scragg and guitarist
Doug Boyle -
Plant recorded a passionate album filled with attitude.
Titled after a 1959
Wailers instrumental, the smash single "Tall Cool
One" featured a cameo by
Zep guitarist Jimmy Page, whose dive-bombing guitar provided
the song's
signature lick. Peaking at #6 on Billboard's Album chart,
NOW AND ZEN also
features "Heaven Knows," "Dance On My Own,"
and the moody "Ship Of Fools."
The expanded version includes live versions of several
album cuts.
MANIC NIRVANA, released in 1990, built on Plant's harder
edge for much of
the album before giving way - on the second half - to
a reflective,
symphonic sound. The album's stylistic dichotomy is embodied
by the album
opener-the rocking "Hurting Kind (I've Got My Eyes
On You)"-and the album
closer "Watching You," which includes Moroccan
chromatics and West African
drumming. The album also includes "Tie Dye On The
Highway," "Big Love" and
"I Cried." The expanded version features "One
Love" and "Don't Look Back"
as well as "Oompa (Watery Bint)," which was
released as a promo single
B-side.
Released in 1993, FATE OF NATIONS marks another shift
in Plant's musical
palette. For this album, Plant returned to the folk origins
that ran
quietly beneath much of Led Zeppelin's music while incorporating
the more
mystical roots of bands like Traffic, Fairport Convention
and especially
Tim Hardin, who Plant covers with "If I Were A Carpenter."
The result is a
collection of songs that mix acoustic and natural-sounding
instruments to
create music that is epic, adventurous and deeply challenging.
The album
features the songs "Calling To You," "29
Palms" and a pair of overtly
political tracks, "Network News" and "Great
Spirit," an anthemic prayer
that calls out for healing. The expanded version includes
"Dark Moon,"
"8:05," a demo version of "Rollercoaster"
culled from Plant's archives, the
B-side version of "Great Spirit" and "Colours
Of A Shade," a song
previously unreleased in the UK and Japan.
After collaborating with Jimmy Page on several projects,
Plant returned in
2002 on Universal Records with the Grammy nominated DREAMLAND,
a collection
of covers - plus two originals - that are as compelling
as they are
idiosyncratic. For the first album with his new band Strange
Sensation,
Plant brings together songs that inspired him over the
years including Tim
Buckley's "Song To The Siren," bluesman Bukka
White's "Funny In My Mind (I
Believe I'm Fixin' To Die)," "One More Cup Of
Coffee" by Bob Dylan and
"Skip's Song" by Skip Spence, the enigmatic
member of Moby Grape. The
expanded version includes a remix of the original track
"Last Time I Saw
Her," and "Dirt In A Hole," a song previously
only available in the UK,
Japan and Australia.
MIGHTY REARRANGER, this twice Grammy nominated album
was released last year
on Sanctuary Records and is Plant's first album of original
material with
Strange Sensation. The album represents a culmination
of Plant's experience
and contains songs imbued with a quarter century of his
musical vision. The
music is instantly infectious and dynamic with shimmering
Indo-Arabic
accents. Cracking the Top 25 of Billboard's Album chart,
the album featured
the hit single "Shine It All Around," the rockabilly-inflected
"Freedom
Fries," and "Brother Ray," a bluesy piano
tribute to Ray Charles. The
expanded version includes "Red, White And Blue,"
"All The Money In The
World," remixes of "Tin Pan Valley," "Shine
It All Around," and "The
Enchanter" remixed by James Lavelle.
|