Short Biography

Robert Anthony Plant (born 20 August 1948), is an English rock singer and songwriter, famous for his membership in the English rock band Led Zeppelin as the lead vocalist, as well as for his successful solo career. He recently released a folk based album with folk singer Alison Krauss.

Plant was born in West Bromwich, then Staffordshire, in West Midlands, to parents Robert C. and Annie C. (Cain) Plant, but grew up in Halesowen, formerly Worcestershire, now part of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley. He left school in his mid-teens and developed a strong passion for the blues, mainly through his admiration for Elvis Presley, Willie Dixon, Robert Johnson and early rendition of songs in this genre. He abandoned training as a chartered accountant after only two weeks to attend college in an effort to gain more GCE passes and to become part of the Midlands blues scene.[1][2] His early blues influences included artists such as Robert Johnson, Bukka White, Skip James, Jerry Miller and Sleepy John Estes. Plant did various jobs while pursuing his music career, one of which was working for the major British construction company Wimpey in Birmingham in 1967 laying tarmac on roads. He also worked at Woolworths in Halesowen town for a short period of time. He cut three obscure singles on CBS Records[3] and sang with a variety of bands, including The Crawling King Snakes, which brought him into contact with drummer John Bonham. They both went on to play in the Band of Joy, merging blues with newer psychedelic trends. Though his early career met with no commercial success, word quickly spread about the "young man with the powerful voice".

In 1968, the guitarist Jimmy Page was in search of a lead singer for his new band and met Plant after being turned down by his first choice, Terry Reid, who referred him to a show at a teacher training college in Birmingham— where Plant was singing in a band named Hobbstweedle. Plant and Page immediately hit it off with a shared musical passion and after Plant joined the band they began their writing collaboration with reworkings of earlier blues songs, although Plant would receive no songwriting credits on the band`s first album, allegedly because he was still under contract to CBS Records at the time. Plant brought along John Bonham as drummer, and along with John Paul Jones, who had worked with Jimmy Page as a studio musician, Led Zeppelin was formed in 1968.

Led Zeppelin`s self-titled debut album hit the charts in 1969 and is widely credited as a catalyst for the heavy metal genre. Plant, however, has commented that it is unfair for people to think of Zeppelin as heavy metal, as almost a third of their music was acoustic.

In August 1975, he and his wife Maureen (m. 1968-1983) were seriously injured in a car crash in Rhodes, Greece. This significantly affected the production of Led Zeppelin`s seventh album Presence for a few months while he recovered, and forced the band to cancel the remaining tour dates for the year.

In July 1977 his oldest son Karac died of a stomach infection when Plant was engaged on Led Zeppelin`s concert tour of the United States. Karac`s death later inspired him to write the song "All My Love" in tribute, featured on Led Zeppelin`s final studio LP, 1979`s In Through the Out Door.

These events had a major effect on Plant, and represent a turning point in Led Zeppelin`s music, as In Through The Out Door featured a lighter and more progressive sound u

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