Most Popular
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Barack Obama and Me
It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator
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Mescaline on the Mexican Border
Texas is the only state in the country where peyote is sold legally. Really.
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A Prison Cover-up During Hurricane Rita
For days after the storm, inmates in Beaumont lived without A/C, electricity or hot meals. Press releases kept saying everything inside was fine. Guards and prisoners agree — that was nothing but B.S.
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Little Bitty Burger Barn
"It's okay to be little bitty in the big city" is an apt slogan for this new burger joint, where sliders rule
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Ghost Town CFS: Carriage House Cafe
Step back in time — to a spooky old carriage barn with a monster chicken-fried steak
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Barack Obama and Me (246)
It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator
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Save Lobo: A Siberian Husky Mix is Sentenced to Die (28)
Why? Because he's big and intimidating and because one family complained about him over and over again
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A Prison Cover-up During Hurricane Rita (13)
For days after the storm, inmates in Beaumont lived without A/C, electricity or hot meals. Press releases kept saying everything inside was fine. Guards and prisoners agree — that was nothing but B.S.
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Are You Hot Enough for Citizen Lounge? (6)
All This Useless Beauty
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Rotten to the Corps: A Question of Justice at Texas A&M (140)
Thanks to A& M and a district attorney, two cadets escape punishment for beating in a student's face
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Are You Hot Enough for Citizen Lounge?
All This Useless Beauty
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Tired of the Hype, But That's All There Is
Next month, Houston gets to be a cool kid. But only for a week.
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The improbable redemption of Ashlee Simpson
"La La" Love You
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Rap's Rapidly Vanishing Female MC
The Why Chromosome
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A New Official State Song for Texas?
A case for a new — or different, anyway — state song
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Geraldo Rivera Is Stupid: A Review of His Panic: Why Americans Fear Hispanics in the U.S.
06:06AM 03/09/08 -
Weekend Music: Help Save the Houston Music Scene
03:54PM 03/07/08 -
To Do: Hockey and Roller Derby
04:12PM 03/07/08 -
Sausage Fest: Bangers and Mash at Red Lion Pub
11:40AM 03/08/08
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Recent Articles By William Michael Smith
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Old Town School of Folk Music Songbook Vols. 2 & 3
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Jimmy Raycraft Benefit
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Terri Hendrix
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I.J. Gosey’s Sunday Afternoon Blues Party
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National Features
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SF Weekly
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Our columnist knows Ralph Nader's running mate all too well.
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The Pitch
How Not To Be a Rap Star
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Village Voice
Project Runaway
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By Michael Musto
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Robert Plant and Alison Krauss: Unlikely duet partners make modern folk masterpiece.
Where:
Subject(s): Robert Plant, Alison Krauss, Raising Sand
On the surface, the imagination boggles when confronted with a musical collaboration between two such seemingly polar opposite talents as Americana/bluegrass goddess Alison Krauss and shouting, yowling Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant. But under producer/bassist T-Bone Burnett's direction, there's no superstardom at play here, just a cadre of singularly talented people painting something novel, interesting and completely alien to the normal calculated commercial processes. Plant sings with an unsuspected subtlety and mesmerizing prettiness, while Burnett's eclectic selection of material allows Krauss to step completely out of character and let her voice soar from Edith Piaf to the Everly Brothers. Her amazing vocal on "Trampled Rose" is at once beautiful and hauntingly dramatic, and Plant's greatness rings through in a brilliant remake of the Brit-rock classic "Fortune Teller." On rockabilly burners like the Everlys' "Gone, Gone, Gone" or beautifully crafted folk obscurities like "Killing the Blues," Krauss and Plant virtually redefine duet, or at least render a definitive modern example. Laid over Burnett's drum-centric arrangements and adventurous rhythms, their hypnotic harmonies reverberate long after this brilliant record is over.
