Robert Plant Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

November rambling: America’s Greatness

Second Cousin or Once Removed?

America’s Greatness: A Guest Commentary

The Vibecession and the AI bubble

America’s got a Jenga economy

Citizens United and the Decline of US Democracy: Assessing the Decision’s Impact 15 Years Later

A Vast Camera System Now Feeds Police Information on Drivers Across the US. They have been called invasive, insecure, and unconstitutional.

Public Media: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

America is sliding toward illiteracy

Veterans Charities to Avoid

Panel discussion at Hampshire College’s 55th anniversary celebration: “Urgent and Unbounded: The Role of Liberal Arts Education in an Age of Rising Authoritarianism,” featuring filmmaker and historian Ken Burns, 71F, AI expert and author Gary Marcus, 86F, and Dr. Lynn Pasquerella, P08, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities.

The Wonderful Public Domain of Oz

Boss preppers: What does a captain of industry have to offer after the sh*t hits the fan?

Short of Medicare for All, Bernie Sanders Offers Democrats 6 Other Ways to Tackle Healthcare Crisis

Disney has lost Roger Rabbit.

Terrible Maps and a very tall garden shed

How a humble weed became a superstar of biology

What’s a capitonym? It is a prime example of the power of capitalization: a single letter can transform a regular noun, such as “turkey,” into a proper noun with a different meaning — “Turkey.”

Building a Book Lamp – actually, building a lamp made out of books

The Chinese Ban on “Fried Rice” and The Lake That Killed Its Neighbors, and At Least He Was Right About the Cake Thing? and Does This Expensive Coffee Taste Like Poop?

Relations

Because I was asked: Second Cousin or Once Removed? Untangling the Family Tree. The Kennedy example: Caroline, JFK’s daughter, and RFK Jr, RFK’s son, are first cousins.

Caroline’s son, Jack Schlossberg (who’s running for Congress in NYC), is RFK Jr.’s first cousin once removed. “If someone is your cousin ‘once removed,’ that means they’re one generation above or below you. For example, your mother’s cousin is your first cousin once removed.” Jack’s sister, Tatiana Schlossberg, also RFK Jr.’s first cousin once removed, announced she has a rare terminal cancer. She noted: “Throughout my treatment, he had been on the national stage… mostly as an embarrassment to me and the rest of my immediate family.”

Metamucilini and company

Shorter Days, Signs of Fatigue: He Faces Realities of Aging in Office

In Courting Saudi Arabia, He Emulates MBS’s Authoritarianism

RFK, Jr. Violates Agreement On CDC Vaccine Guidance, Putting Millions At Risk

The FDA Commissioner Is Missing the Point of Advisory Committees — Makary’s hand-picked panels lack diversity of opinion, robust evidence reviews, and credibility

Swastikas and Nooses Are No Longer Hate Symbols Under New Coast Guard Rules

Soldiers Must Disobey Unlawful Orders — It’s Their Legal Duty

List of Degrees Not Classed As ‘Professional’ by Regime

Marjorie Taylor Greene resigns: Read her statement in full. I’m oddly annoyed that he chooses to misspell her last name as Green.

MUSIC

Reggae legend Jimmy Cliff dies, aged 81. The Harder They Come; Many Rivers To Cross

Robert Plant: Tiny Desk Concert, Nov 21, 2025

J. Eric Smith’s Genre Delve: British Folk Rock and Metal vs Hard Rock

Coverville 1558: The Neil Young Cover Story IV

MTG Has Broken Cover – Marsh Family parody of “Billie Jean” by MJ about Marjorie Taylor Greene

Tomorrow Never Knows – The Beatles

The Beatles Songbook – Christine Pedi

Heaven -James McCartney

Vltava (The Moldau) by Bedrich Smetana

Spill The Wine – Eric Burdon & War

Waterways by Ludovico Einaudi

Not One Of Us – Peter Gabriel

The Hunt for Red October suite by Basil Poledouris

Bach Fugue -The Newfangled Four | GWC 50th Anniversary Show

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald – Born Free

White Rabbit – Jefferson Airplane

Long May You Run – The Stills-Young Band

Time Of The Season– The Zombies

My Fair Lady overture

Take Me or Leave Me – Idina Menzel · Tracie Thoms from RENT OST

Table for Two, Away from the Band, Please – Road Work Ahead

Organist John Jasper McClellan (1874-1925) performs the Overture from Tännhauser (1845) by Richard Wagner (1813-1883). It’s one of the oldest acoustic (church) pipe organ recordings ever made, from late August and early September 1910 in the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, Utah. Given the label print from the disc, this must have been a later production run of this record.

We Built This City – Starship

Blame It on the Record Label

Singer Robert Plant turns 70 (August 20)

Record of the Year award at the 2009 Grammy Awards

In February 2018, I came across an article about Robert Plant and his current group, the Sensational Space Shifters, who’ve been together since 2012! My, I’m behind in tracking his post-Led Zeppelin career trajectory.

I’ve written at some length about my love/hate affair with Led Zeppelin, who were innovative thieves. I have more than half of their albums in one format or another, as well as the boxed set. FWIW, ten folks answered this Quora question: Why did Plant and Jimmy Page treat John Paul Jones like dirt after Led Zeppelin disbanded?

I own at least four of the first six solo albums of Robert Plant. I have the Honeydrippers one-off from 1984, with Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck, on cassette, if I can find it. I also bought a Page/Plant CD.

My wife is a big fan of bluegrass star Alison Krauss, who we saw play live in 2003. So I got her the Raising Sand CD with Plant and Krauss for Christmas in 2007. She thought it was too loud – I disagree – so I stole it back.

My fascination with his group Band of Joy from 2010/2011 is that there’s a cover of a song my father used to sing.

Plant said in that newspaper interview that he keeps in shape by falling “in love about every 18 months. I do my best to be in love with life. I like to see the sparkle that exists and the kindness and the charm of the world, as well as the mess.”

Listen to songs by Robert Plant:

Big Log (#20 in 1983)

In the Mood (#39 in 1984)

Little by Little (#35 in 1984)

Sea of Love – the Honeydrippers (#3 in 1985)

(Good) Rockin’ At Midnight – the Honeydrippers (#25 in 1985)

Tall Cool One (#25 in 1988)

Ship of Fools (#84 in 1988)

Hurting, Kind (#46 in 1990)

29 Palms (#111 in 1993)

Darkness Darkness (2002)

Rich Woman – with Alison Krauss (#118 in 2009)

Please Read The Letter – with Alison Krauss (#120 in 2009, Record of the Year award at the 2009 Grammy Awards)

Cindy I’ll Marry You One Day – Band of Joy (2010)

Carry Fire – Sensational Space Shifters (2017)

Bluebirds Over the Mountains – Sensational Space Shifters (2017)

Heaven Sent – Sensational Space Shifters (2017)

Z is for (Led) Zeppelin 1969

The Dixon composition was so similar that Led Zeppelin reached a settlement with Dixon over the royalties for the song, and credited Dixon as the writer when this appeared on Led Zeppelin’s How The West Was Won live DVD

I have such mixed feelings about the band Led Zeppelin.

Their eponymous first album I loved. I recall quite clearly the day I first heard it. It was a sunny and warm day in late May or early June 1969, when I was 16.

I was riding a borrowed bicycle and was riding over from the First Ward to the South Side of Binghamton, NY, along with my very good friend Carol, to visit friends. The bike had hand breaks, which I had never had on any of my bikes; one “broke” by putting one’s foot back. Got down Front Street without having to slow down, but crossing the bridge, I was gaining on Carol, and couldn’t stop, so I put my foot to the ground to slow down, flipped the bike, and crashed to the ground. I got a nasty gash on my right forearm. Carol said, “Are you OK?” and I lied, “Sure.” And that’s when I learned about hand breaks.

We rode the rest of the way, talked with our friends, had some food, and someone played that LZ album. I was immediately entranced by the opening chords of Good Times, Bad Times.

Then my friend Lois noticed the gash on my right forearm, just above the elbow, and she, Carol and Karen started removing gravel from the abrasion. It hurt, a lot actually, and left a scar that remained until the vitiligo obliterated it only a couple years ago. But it didn’t matter, because I’m really enjoying this music. My first favorite song was Communications Breakdown.

When I bought the album shortly therafter, I noticed it had two songs by the blues legend Willie Dixon, You Shook Me and I Can’t Quit You Baby, and attributed as such. The biggest deception was the 3:30 running time for How Many More Times, which was more like 8:30, apparently a trick to try to get radio stations to play it.

Led Zeppelin II was even more entertaining, but ultimately it became problematic for me. The first song, Whole Lotta Love was attributed to the band, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham. But I discovered a few years later that it bore a distinct similarity to You Need Love as performed by Muddy Waters, which was a song written by Willie Dixon. As described here, the Small Faces had nicked the song even before Zeppelin.

“Another blues classic on Led Zeppelin II became famous as The Lemon Song. Derived directly from Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killing Floor”, there is also the infamous quote about squeezing lemons that comes from Robert Johnson’s “Traveling Riverside Blues.” Chester Burnett, a.k.a. Howlin’ Wolf, received no credit for The Lemon Song. In the early ’70s, Arc Music sued Led Zeppelin for copyright infringement. The suit was settled out of court.

But the most egregious theft, I thought, was Bring It On Home. As described here: This was influenced by a song of the same name recorded by Blues great Sonny Boy Williamson and written by Willie Dixon. The Dixon composition was so similar that Led Zeppelin reached a settlement with Dixon over the royalties for the song, and credited Dixon as the writer when this appeared on Led Zeppelin’s How The West Was Won live DVD. Plant’s beginning vocal even imitates Williamson’s.

I just don’t understand the need for misattribution. Yet, which album did I ultimately buy on CD? You guessed it: LZ II.

I have other Zeppelin albums, but that’s enough for now, except for this
Republican congressman quoting the group on the floor of Congress. Oy.