Back in the Spring of 1968, things aren't looking too rosy for 19-year-old
singer Robert Plant. His promising group The Band Of Joy have just knocked
it on the head, and now he fronts the frankly less than awesome
Hobbstweedle.

"I had nowhere to live," Robert recalls of those scuffling days in the
blueswailing business, "and the keyboards player's dad had a pub in
Wolverhampton with a spare room. The pub was right over the road from Noddy
Holder's father's window cleaning business, and Noddy used to be our roadie.
We used to go to gigs with Noddy Holder's dad's buckets crashing around on
top of the van! And that," he divulges with an audible sigh of relief, "is
when I met Pagey..."

Accompanied by his fellow ex-Yardbird, Chris Dreja, Jimmy Page had made the
trek to the teachers' training college in Birmingham where Hobbstweedle were
gigging that night. They had plans afoot for a New Yardbirds, and the
screaming 'Tweedle had been recommended by Terry Reid as being the man they
were after. Pagey was impressed, and invited the impoverished Plant down to
his plush Thameside resident in Pangbourne for further investigation: "And I
had to do this very thing which we're doing now - we played records and
talked about them to see how we were placed."

These records included Muddy Waters's 'You Shook Me', 'Babe I'm Gonna Leave
You' by Joan Baez - "we both liked her", and Fairport Convention with Judy
Dyble - "'If I Had A Ribbon Bow' was a great song" - 'She Said Yeah' by
Larry Williams, and 'Justine' by Don & Dewey. Suffice to say, Robert Plant's
taste in records placed him very well - and thus lifted off Led Zeppelin....

Twenty two years later, Robert Plant sits cross-legged in the music room of
his London pied-a-terre, an elegant yet somehow funky Victorian terrace
house tucked in a quiet square just a minute's cycle ride from Regent's
Park. His rural retreats in Worcestershire and Wales are where he keeps most
of his albums - but no matter, for he is surrounded by scads of that
soon-to-be museum piece, the good old jukebox-compatible single. The man who
first threatened to give us every inch of his love over two decades ago
still prefers to get his own kicks in seven-inch lengths, a passion which
first stirred at the age of six with the recently deceased Nabob of Sob.

"I remember Johnny Ray. His voice and Presley's had a similarity - and in
fact Presley was influenced by him and did his song 'Such A Night' on his
Elvis Is Back album. Ray's masculine whimper was remarkable, really. When
you were holding your dad's hand and looking up at all the men around on the
street, nobody was making that noise."

This was the era of Sunday Night At The London Palladium on TV, where
Robert, by now 10, saw Buddy Holly And The Crickets. Buddy's Fender
Statocaster made a particular impression: "Nobody had really seen one in
Britain. It was an incredible symbol of what I hadn't got my hands on yet.
But I was still only 10 and hadn't bought a record yet, though I used to do
Elvis impersonations behind the curtains in my living room, especially the
ballad 'Love Me' from Elvis' Golden Records Volume 1." Next came the teen
rebellion of Eddie Cochran's 'Summertime Blues', and then - hurrah! -
Robert's first slice of the American rock 'n' roll dream....

"At Christmas 1960 I was given my first Dansette Conquest Auto Major, in red
and cream - I've still got it and used it until Led Zeppelin II so I didn't
hear the stereo effect on 'Whole Lotta Love' for about six months!" he
fondly recalls. "When I opened it up, on the turntable was 'Dreamin'' by
Johnny Burnette, with 'Cincinatti Fireball' on the B-side, something I've
always wanted to record. And then I got my first record token and went out
and bought 'Shop Around' by The Miracles. On the B-side was 'Who's Lovin'
You', a remarkable ballad. Smokey's wife was in the band, and I've got the
Hi! We're The Miracles album on Tamla where they're all holding letters up
on the cover. Smokey has the most remarkable voice. I love the wail and the
whimper, and in my own white boy way I sing like that - the adamance and the
pleading, the miserable, moaning, weakboy stamping his authority on the next
line. It's a style that's vanished now."

Back then singles cost 6/9d and LPs were 32 shillings - "except for the
Golden Guinea records, which were 21 shilling Pye releases" - so young
record buyers spent their pocket money discriminatingly. And, of course,
they all tuned into Radio Luxembourg, checking out the Stateside sounds of
Chris Kenner, 'Sacred' by The Castells, 'Once In A While' by The Chimes,
"late doo-wop Italian stuff."

Then came such British obscurities as Michael Cox's 'Sweet Little Sixteen'.

"There was a faction at school which around '63 moved towards the clipped,
English style of Joe Meek's productions on his RGM label, like 'Can't You
Hear My Heart' by Danny Rivers," Robert remembers. "Meek became a hero of
mine, especially for the guitar sound played by Big Jim Sullivan. It would
be unfair to say the Americans had it all at the time. The songs were pretty
weedy but the sound was churning confusion. Joe Meek would make the
guitarist put his amp in the cupboard and stuff - that was how we used to do
it with Zep."

The sounds of '62 and thereabouts still exercise a powerful nostalgic pull
for Robert.

"I did a radio show quite by accident - a collectors' programme on Friday
nights on BBC Radio Shropshire," he chuckles. "I ws driving up to
Manchester, and tuned in, hearing them get into the finer side of British
instrumentals. The DJ said anyone looking for particular records should call
in, so I pulled up and rang, asking for 'Caravan Of Lonely Men' by The
Lafayettes, released on RCA in 1963. I got back in the car, and on the radio
the DJ said, 'Well, I don't know if it's true but we've had this chap who
says he's Robert Plant and he's after this Lafyettes track produced by Hugo
and Luigi.' Within five minutes a chap called Norman from Bradford called up
to say he had it. I rang up, sent him a fiver and got it. Great! I was a Ted
for about a week and a half until I found Drinamyl and pills."

Robert Plant also found the blues, whose first distant booming in the clubs
of London and the Home Counties began to reach the Midlands. His first
exposure came via the package tours that came to the Wolverhampton Gaumont,
where his hip young uncle and aunt would take the just teen Robert: "In 1963
I saw a bill that had The Rattles, Mickie Most And The Most Men, Bo Diddley,
Little Richard, The Everly Brothers and The Rolling Stones. Now that's an
evening; all that for 7/6d - 371/2p! Diddley was superb. I was sweating with
excitement! Although the Stones were great, they were really crap in
comparison with Diddley - all his rhythms were so sexual, just oozing, even
in a 20-minute spot.

"One of my favourite records is Bo Diddley's 'Say Man', on the back of an
instrumental called 'The Clock Strikes 12', which had electric violin. I
bought it in a department store record sale. 'Say Man' was a conversation
between two guys about how ugly their women were, set to a Latin American
beat. Also bought in a department store sales was 'I Love You' by The
Volumes, 'I Sold My Heart To The Junkman' by Patti Labelle and The Blue
Belles, and probably the last great doo-wop song. 'My True Story' by The
Jive Five on Beltone. That's another one I've got to do."

Like Bo, Solomon Burke, Arthur Alexander and Ben E. King were milestones on
the road to deep blues. That fateful first blues LP was Muddy Waters Live At
Newport 1960: "'I've Got My Mojo Working' was a walking testament of why I
lived. Then I got The Blues Volume 1 which came out on Pye International; it
was a sampler with Buddy Guy Jimmy Witherspoon, Howlin' Wolf, Chuck Berry
and Little Walter - once you've got that, everything else was of little
consequence. It wasn't hip to like the Stones because you'd got the American
thing - EPs were coming out like Chuck & Bo and This is Chuck Berry - the
real thing. The Howlin' Wolf EP Smokestack Lightning was available
everywhere, and you kept finding more and more stuff - Earl Hooker, Charley
Patton..."

Robert became a regular at The Diskery in Brimingham, delving deep into the
seam that ran from the Delta to Chicago. "I got a series of French RCA EPs
with Jazz Gillum, the original Sonny Boy Williamson with sleevenotes by
Alexis Korner. I worked with Alexis Korner just pre-Zep. I used to sleep at
his place in Queensway. Goodnight, Robert, he'd say; you'll have to sleep on
the couch tonight - oh, by the way, it is the same couch that Muddy used to
sleep on when he stayed here. And I don't know if we've changed the toilet
bowl since Buddy Guy was here...This was fabulous - I'm only from
Wolverhampton, you know!

"The Wynonie Harris-type jump blues I thought was slush, but quite like now:
when I started listening to Roy Milton and Roy Brown, I thought yeah! - I
really like this after all. That's where The Honeydrippers came from" Robert
recalls the origins of his bestselling 1984 covers LP. "Blues gave me my
first band titles - my first band was The Black Snake Moan, after Blind
Lemon Jefferson, and the second was The Crawling King Snakes after a
brilliant John Lee Hooker track."

By '66, Robert fronted his first pro band, Listen: "Very sound orientated,"
he recalls, "but the following year The Band Of Joy was West Coast and blues
based. You can't really do 'Pouring Water (On A Drowning Man)' by James Carr
- you could never get anywhere near it. At least West Coast was white, an
extension of the garage punk stuff on the East Coast, which had come from
The Animals and The Yardbirds. I could relate to it, and in fact The Band Of
Joy could play better than a lot of the groups we were listening to. But
essence of Moby Grape was something we hadn't got. The first Moby Grape
album, The Fugs, Buffalo Springfield., Love's single 'My Little Red Book',
and 'She Has Funny Cars' by Jefferson Airplane - fantastic! And also
American garage punk - Count Five,? and The Mysterians, 'Liar, Liar' by the
The Castaways...

AT 41 I've still got my music. I'm as earnest now as I ever was," Robert
Plant brings us up to date. He sure ain't kidding, as lapping his ankles are
treasures ranging from Otis Rush, Snooks Eaglin and Aaron Neville to Big
Black, Robyn Hitchcock, Glen Branca ("I like discordancy"). The Band Of Holy
Joy ("Ha!")m and Sinead O'Connor - 'She captivates me, wins my heart, wins
my whole being!" he raves. It's a record collection added to during Zep's US
tours, when he'd comb the ten-cent bins on days off, and extending from the
early reggae cuts of Delroy Wilson to the Berber music of Raissa Rkya
Dansirya and Fairuz.

But Robert Plant remains at heart a rocker. A signed album by Gene Vincent
is one of his "pride and joys" and he has collected the complete vinyl of
Ral Donner, who "for half a minute challenged Presley." At rock'n'roll
nights at the Camden Working Men's Club, where the purists tease him for
looking like a girl, he thrills to the utterly demented likes of 'Scream!'
by Ralph Neilsen and the Chancellors, and Hasil Adkins' 'She Said': "During
quiet times with Zep I used to record with chums," Robert chortles. "Every
Christmas this chap from my village pub would get pissed and sing doo-wop
carols in the bar - so well, in fact, that we rented a studio in Worcester
and cut 'Three Months To Kill' by Heulyn Duvall on Challenge and 'Buzz Buzz
A Diddly' by Freddy Cannon, for Bird's Nest Records. Melvyn Giganticus and
The Turd Burglars was the name of our group, because he had a huge penis -
bigger, I think, than Paul Young's!"

Apropos burglary, Robert cites the unlikely influence of 'Tomorrow's Clown'
by Marty Wilde: John Lennon, he says, lifted its string part for 'How Do You
Sleep', while Robert himself has taken its first line, "In the evening...."
Led Zeppelin enthusiasts may well be more familiar with an obscure Fontana
EP called Treasures of North American Negro Music. It includes two Blind
Willie Johnson tunes; 'Dark Is The Night, Cold Is The Grave' ("Basically
it's the entire theme for Paris, Texas by Ry Cooder") - and 'Nobody's Fault
But Mine'. Led Zep's version on the LP Presence, funnily enough, is credited
to Page/Plant.

"Oh look!" Robert brandishes a boxed copy of Glen Campbell's 1961 hitlet
turn 'Around Look At Me' on the Crest label. "It's got 'Rob' written on it -
I was familiar with myself even then!"

*

Robert Plant's Personal Favourites

The Phantom: 'Love Me' (Dot)
"Because he was on Dot, he was presumed to be pat Boone's brother, but
because he wore a mask like The Lone Ranger nobody could tell. (His real
name is said to be Marty Lott.) It's a perfect piece of recording - you
can't understand a word and you don't care!"

Faith No More: Introduce Yourself (London)
"Their first album. It's like, I, ME, listen to this! and if you don't like
it, fuck off!!! You can't spend all your life whimpering away about the
ex-wife. The vocal attitude - the hard, heavy garage rap - I like very
much."

Tom Verlaine: 'Five Miles of You' on LP Cover (Virgin)
"This album is a real favourite; I play it a lot and it's really scratched.
I like albums - much better than CDs.

Ray Charles: 'What'd I Say' on LP The Right Time (Atlantic)
"It was very popular, it was covered like crazy. It helped a lot of English
musicians develop a real attitude, to get their musical personalities
sharpened up."

The Incredible String Band: 'Swift As The Wind' on LP The Hangman's
Beautiful Daughter (Elektra)
"Some of the greatest times I've had was at a String Band show, just being
carried away by the whole experience."

Howlin' Wolf: 'Going Down Slow' on LP Chess Masters(Chess)
"Because of the guitar outro by Hubert Sumlin. Listen to Hubert, I tell my
guitarist Doug Boyle; listen to that finer tremolo on the end of that
track."

This Mortal Coil: 'Song to The Siren' on LP It'll End In Tears (4AD)
"I like the Tim Buckley original too but I'll go with this version. It's so
rewarding to hear it on US college radio."

Robert Johnson: 'Traveling Riverside Blues' on LP KIng of The Delta Blues
Singers Volumes 1 and 2 (CBS)
"Squeeze my lemon till the juice runs down my leg...' On tour in Memphis, I
rented a car and drove down to Mississippi, to Fryers Point, as in the song.
Very strange place, very African, very other-wordly. Sleepy, woodsmoke
fires, big trees all around, burnt-out motels, deserted gas stations..."

The Cure: 'Lullaby' on LP Disintegration (Fiction)
"I love Robert Smith's beckoning you into his vulnerability. It's an
interesting little world, like H.G. Wells's History Of Mr Polly."

Elvis Presley: 'A Big Hunk O'Love' on LP The All Time Greatest Hits (RCA)
"The RCA stuff was very precise, very produced, yet wild enough at times.
'Don't be a stingy little mommal You're about to starve me half to death/
Now you can spare a kiss or two/ and still have plenty left.' Oh Morrissey,
let's have some more of that!"

...AND FAVOURITE 'SELF-PENNED CLASSIC'

Led Zeppelin: 'Kashmir' on LP Physical Graffiti (Swan Song)
"It's so right - there's nothing overblown, no vocal hysterics. Perfect
Zeppelin."