John M. Setzler, Jr.

I was in the music section at Barnes and Noble the other night and listened to some clips from the Robert Plant / Alison Krauss “Raising Sand” CD. What I heard was different than what I expected, and I walked away and didn’t make the purchase. On my way home and during the next day, I kept thinking about what I heard and decided to buy the CD and give it a try.

The simple thought of these two collaborating on anything musically really seemed odd to me because of their distinct backgrounds and styles of music. I found this CD in the “Country” section of Walmart, so that made me think even harder about what I would be absorbing through the earbuds of my iPod when I got back home.

After listening to the CD several times, I still have not drawn a solid conclusion on a definition of this style of music. Maybe I should have expected this, but the sound and style of this music is a very nice mix of what you might expect from Plant and Krauss individually. Some of the tracks lean more to one side than the other, but since I like both musicians individually, I’m enjoying the combination of the two.

I have included the second track from this CD for you to hear for yourself. It’s called “Killing the Blues.”