Robert Plant: A Life by Rees Paul

Author:Rees, Paul [Rees, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780062281401
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-10-22T00:00:00+00:00

PART THREE

SOLO

Hey presto! I was born again.

© Camera Press/Perou

13

EXORCISM

It was almost like a spiritual quest . . . like we were all walking five feet off the ground.

In the immediate aftermath of Bonham’s death, vultures were soon circling. Plant and Page were each approached through Peter Grant to form a new “supergroup” with bassist Chris Squire and drummer Alan White from the prog-rock band Yes. This proposed group was to have been called XYZ, which signified ex-members of Yes and Led Zeppelin. Page met Squire and White, and even went as far as sitting in with them. Plant ignored the offer.

As he’d done after his son Karac had died, Plant instead collected himself at Jennings Farm. Once again, the route he charted back to music started from far off the beaten track. He was sparked into it by Benji LeFevre, who was still living on the farm and had assigned himself the job of clearing out one of the barns, as much as for having something to do.

That job done, LeFevre next occupied his time in setting up a small four-track studio in the barn. At LeFevre’s urging, Plant began using this new resource, inviting local friends around to jam with him, setting these sessions down on tape for the sheer fun of it. First to drop by were Andy Silvester and Robbie Blunt. Both men hailed from down the road in Kidderminster and had known Plant since he was a grammar-school boy.

An unassuming character, Silvester had met Plant at the Seven Stars blues club in Stourbridge in the early ’60s. He played bass and guitar, both equally well, although others had a higher opinion of his abilities than he himself did. The teenage Robbie Blunt was a frequent visitor to Plant’s family home at 64 Causey Farm Road. There, the pair of them had sat up in Plant’s bedroom listening to blues records. Even then, Blunt was a gifted guitarist. He’d gone on to play with a couple more of Plant’s old Kidderminster posse, Jess Roden and Kevyn Gammond, in a band called Bronco, and also with Michael Des Barres in Silverhead.

These get-togethers at Jennings Farm were relaxed affairs and a regular group of musicians formed around them. Joining Blunt and Silvester were Jim Hickman on bass, Kevin O’Neil on drums, Ricky Cool on harmonica and a saxophonist, Keith Evans. Belting out old R&B and rock ’n’ roll standards with this collective, Plant seemed happier than he’d been in years, his love of music rekindled.

“He found a freedom again to do what he wanted, rather than what was expected of him,” says LeFevre. “Underneath it all, I think that was how he experienced the last few years of Zeppelin. He had all these confused thought patterns—this feeling of responsibility to the other members and their families. This was something that he could enjoy doing. It was just about playing music and it wasn’t to do with self-indulgent, 30-minute guitar solos.”

“I was living in the West Country at the time,

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