Plant, Krauss Make Sweet Music

Alison Krauss’ clear mountain voice might seem an odd match for former Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant, but their collaboration, Raising Sand, is “the stuff of which music lovers’ dreams are made,” says the Boston Globe. Traversing a range of root styles, Krauss and Plant harmonize beautifully, USA Today says, with the “reliably gorgeous” Krauss reining in Plant’s “mannered excesses.”

Producer T Bone Burnett deserves much credit, says Billboard, for selecting “compelling, off-the-beaten-path” tunes. He “chucked the original arrangements, and hired a band of like-minded mavericks” to record them, the Globe says. Rolling Stone's Robert Christgau dissents, saying the pair doesn’t always achieve the desired "back-porch revelation.” (More country music stories.)