Robert Plant, Alison Krauss Share Final ‘Raise the Roof’ LP Preview With New ‘It Don’t Bother Me’ Cover

Musicians’ rendition of Bert Jansch’s song will appear on new album arriving Nov. 19

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss have dropped new single “It Don’t Bother Me.”
Their take on Scottish folk musician Bert Jansch’s acoustic song will appear on
their collaborative album Raise the Roof, which is their first LP they’ve culled
together in 14 years. The album arrives Nov. 19.

Their rendition, which serves as their final preview to the Raise the Roof before it
drops, also features guitarists Mark Ribot and Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo. “You
twist my words/Like plaited reeds/To mark your gain,” the duo duets on the track
about shaking off criticisms and going one’s own way, which Krauss leads. “And
help your needs/But it don’t bother me/What you say.”

“Tve been a big follower of Bert Jansch’s work since I was a teenager, and of that
whole Irish, Scottish, English folk style that has a different lilt and different lyrical
perspective,” Plant said in a statement. “I was very keen to bring some of that into

the picture.”

The new single follows their recently released song “High and Lonesome,” which
is the sole original song amidst the covers featured on Raise the Roof.

In a previous statement, Plant said the album is ‘such a far cry from everything
I’ve done before,” he said ‘I love the whole kaleidoscope of music that I’ve
explored, but this is a place where you can think within the song, you can decide
How to bring home an emotion, Is another blend that we’ve got, and long may we
have more of then,”

Plant and Krauss are planning to tour in support of the LP in 2022

Alison Krauss overcomes dysphonia to release first solo album in 18 years

NASHVILLE — Alison Krauss stepped up to the microphone, opened her mouth and…nothing happened.

Nearly 30 years into her career, the one-time fiddle-playing child prodigy turned multiplatinum star had lost her ethereal soprano. “I’d go onstage and it would shut down. In the studio my throat would close up,” she said. “That was a pain in the neck. Literally.”

In 2013, she was diagnosed with a condition called dysphonia (a general term that encompasses several vocal issues including hoarseness) and forced to cancel several performances with her bluegrass band Union Station.

Frustrated, she sought out a voice teacher, Ron Browning; her sessions with him were “like getting a shot in the arm about singing again.” After working with Browning, Krauss was able to finish Windy City (due Friday), her first solo record in 18 years — and a project she started three-and-a-half years ago.

Krauss made several records during those 18 years, including three studio albums with Union Station and Raising Sand with Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant. But starting a solo album requires a different kind of motivation. “I feel like it’s my duty to only do what I’m inspired to do, or it’s not truthful.”

Windy City was inspired by two different sources: the photographs of Bob Richardson, and producer Buddy Cannon. She’d sung harmony on records Cannon produced for artists including Jamey Johnson, and realized that she wanted to make an album with him at the helm. Cannon’s response was immediate.

“I said, ‘Hell, yes,’” Cannon remembered. They fired up the computer in Cannon’s office and began searching for songs to cover.

“We talked about only having songs that were older than me, but we ended up changing that when we figured out how old I was,” Krauss, 45, joked. “Actually I thought it was more important that they all fit together. I think they did.”

A couple of their choices, like John Hartford’s Gentle on My Mind and the Cindy Walker/Eddy Arnold song You Don’t Know Me, are familiar to the casual country music listener. But the majority of songs Krauss and Cannon chose for Windy City are lesser-known gems, like River in the Rain, a Roger Miller-penned song for a Broadway musical about Huckleberry Finn, and the title track, which was recorded by bluegrass duo The Osborne Brothers 45 years ago.

Though Windy City took years to complete, the finished product is worth the wait. It’s an early contender for Album of the Year honors; a lush, timeless-sounding album that’s held together by Krauss’ gossamer voice.

An underlying thread of melancholy runs through the record, but Krauss didn’t notice a theme until she was done recording. “I thought the record had loss, but it was still strong,” she said. “It was a sad record, but it wasn’t desperate.”