Sixty-one year-old Black Country rocker and ex-Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant continues to keep busy, with a UK, North America and European tour to promote his 2010 album Band of Joy.
The self-produced Nashville-recorded album has been getting good reviews and has picked up two 2011 Grammy nominations, which will please the West Bromwich-born singer as much as being presented with his CBE by the Prince of Wales.
Meanwhile his pairing with country and bluegrass singer Alison Krauss continues to be a musical and financial success. The music industry thought it was good enough to deserve no less than five Grammy awards.
Their album, Raising Sand, was a runaway success and was followed by sell-out tours of the UK and the States which brought in close to £10 million. They also received awards for album of the year and duo of the year at the annual Americana awards.
All this is on top of earnings of around £2.5 million from Led Zeppelin publishing fees. Rumours of a Led Zeppelin reunion followed the band’s one-off reunion concert at the O2 Arena in 2008, but Robert Plant himself has consistently denied that he has any plans to link up with his former band members.
The O2 Arena reunion was the first time the band had performed together for 19 years. The concert was held as a tribute to the late founder of Atlantic Records, Ahmet Ertegun. Ertegun, who died in 2006 aged 83, and signed Led Zeppelin to the label in 1968.
Robert Plant had a Black Country childhood – brought up in Halesowen - and a promising career as a chartered accountant. He pursued his music career unprofitably to begin with, subsidising his income with a variety of jobs.
In 1968, Jimmy Page recruited Robert Plant as lead singer for his new band. They were joined by drummer, the late John Bonham and John Paul Jones.
Led Zeppelin have since sold more than 300 million albums worldwide. In 1995 the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
