Robert Plant and Alison Krauss have released their live version of Led Zeppelin classic ‘When The Levee Breaks’.
The legendary group’s frontman, 75, and his 52-year-old Americana duets partner have put out two collaborative albums together – 2007’s ‘Raising Sand’ and 2021’s ‘Raise the Roof’ – to date, and they have now made the live version of the re-worked country blues song by the English rock group, which became the last song on their 1971 untitled fourth album, available on streaming services.
Plant and Krauss perform the song at their live shows, and they are accompanied by guitarist JD McPherson, drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Dennis Crouch, string player Stuart Duncan and multi-instrumentalist Viktor Krauss.
Plant used many of the original lyrics and the songwriting is credited to Memphis Minnie and the individual members of Led Zeppelin.
Late drummer John Bonham’s drumbeat is one of the most used samples in popular music, having been used on tracks by Eminem and Dr. Dre, Mike Oldfield, and Sophie B. Hawkins.
It’s not the only Zeppelin track to make it into the pair’s live sets, with them having performed the likes of ‘The Battle Of Evermore’, ‘Rock And Roll’, and ‘Gallows Pole’.
Meanwhile, Plant recently admitted it was “cathartic” performing Zeppelin classic ‘Stairway To Heaven’ again.
The rock icon jumped onstage in October at a charity concert for The Cancer Platform at Soho Farmhouse in Oxfordshire, which was hosted by Duran Duran’s Andy Taylor, who underwent treatment for stage 4 prostate cancer.
Before then, the last time he performed the 1971 hit was when the band performed at The O2 in London in 2007.
He told Rolling Stone: “It was cathartic. People go, ‘Oh, that’s good. He never was going to do that.’ But I didn’t really do it! I just blurted it out. ‘Cause it’s such an important song to me for where I was at the time and where I was with Jimmy [Page] and with John [Paul Jones] and Bonzo [John Bonham]. So on that night, it was what it was. It was a trial by fire, but I felt better at the end than at the beginning.”
Asked about it potentially being his last performance of the song, he said: “Yeah, I think you’re probably right. I haven’t got around to doing the ice-skating rinks in Finland yet with a small orchestra. [Laughs] So I don’t think I’ll be doing that, but I don’t know. Who knows? Something could change somewhere. Spirit and heart could come back in the soul. It’s a long song. Who can remember all those words?”
Photo: Justin Ng/Retna/Avalon (c)