Robert Plant And Alison Krauss Win Grammy Album Of The Year

Raising Sand, from Led Zeppelin vet and bluegrass superstar, wins five Grammys on Sunday night.
By James Montgomery with MTV News staff


Alison Krauss and Robert Plant accept the award for Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards on Sunday
Photo: Kevin Winter/ Getty Images

"I'm bewildered," Robert Plant said onstage as he accepted the Grammy Album of the Year award with Alison Krauss on Sunday night. "In the old days we would have called this selling out, but it's a good way to spend a Sunday."

He was probably one of the few who were surprised, because Raising Sand, which won five trophies at Sunday night's show, is in many ways the perfect Grammy album. It features two respected veterans, a critically lauded producer, some sandpaper-and-velvet vocals and a baker's dozen of time-tested standards.

You're probably familiar with Robert Plant from his Led Zeppelin days, and you might be aware of producer T-Bone Burnett's work on the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack (it won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2002). And if you don't know who Alison Krauss is, she possesses a haunting set of pipes and is one of the meanest fiddle players in the world. Oh, and she's won 21 Grammys, more than any other female artist and the seventh-most in history.

Really, she's the key to Sand's success, and not just because of her voice (or her fiddle playing). She and Plant first met in 2004, at a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tribute to legendary bluesman Leadbelly, and the former Zeppelin man was amazed by her knowledge of American Roots music — so much so that they began kicking around the idea of recording an album together. Three years later, Sand was released.

And while Plant possesses the more famous voice, the album's finest moments radiate from Krauss. Whether she's getting bluesy on Little Milton's "Let Your Loss Be Your Lesson" or entwining with Plant's husky voice on songs like "Please Read the Letter" and Roly Salley's winsome "Killing the Blues," she more than carries her end of the bargain.

And perhaps that's also due to producer Burnett, who handpicked the 13 songs the duo cover on Sand. His arrangements are sparse — giving the two voices ample room to breathe — yet dense, warm and crackling at the same time. It's a testament to his work that he's often given just as much billing as Plant and Krauss on the project ... and it's certainly justified.

To date, Sand has sold more than 1 million copies, heaped tons of acclaim and actually earned a Grammy last year — "Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)" took home the award for Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals.

One expert was surprised not by the album's success, but by the fact that it's actually quite a good album.

"At first, the album seemed like a vanity project. ... Two names, clearly a one-off record, didn't have to be any good, you know?" New York Times music critic Jon Caramanica said. "Led Zeppelin fans would buy it because of Robert Plant, Alison Krauss would get a check. But it actually turned out to be a really thoughtful, really good record. So when you combine all that with the fact that the Grammys love to lionize one of their own, I could really see it taking home some awards."

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Lady Gaga's Harper's Bazaar Cover Is 'A Big Deal'

Fashion photographers Inez & Vinoodh say stripped-down photo shows 'the old soul that she is.'
By Jocelyn Vena


Lady Gaga on the October 2011 cover of <i>Harper's Bazaar</i>
Photo: Inez & Vinoodh / Hearst Communications

Lady Gaga appears barefaced on the latest cover of Harper's Bazaar. The cover is simply a close-up of her face: no makeup, wigs, masks or high-end couture. For a star who's frequently adorned elaborately, the simplicity of the look was so drastic that it made headlines.

Fans might be surprised to learn the cover shot was taken during a hectic video shoot in Nebraska, where Gaga was not only shooting her official "You and I" clip, but also several Inez & Vinoodh-directed fashion films.

The pair, who shot the Harper's cover, told MTV News the photo truly exposes Gaga as the person she is. "She's so beautiful in it. It's her emotion and her expression, and you can just see the old soul that she is, the pure happiness," Inez explained. "She's a very special human being that is all about giving. I think that's what's great with that cover: It's so out; it's so talking to the people. That's her most incredible quality: radiating that happiness that she has, and you really see it."

Over the course of her career, Gaga has had many extreme looks on the cover of countless magazines, and it seems that this stripped-down look was the only natural progression for her. The duo, who also shot her three-headed V Magazine cover, explained that this cover is "her purely; seeing her how she is inside."

So, how did the cover come to be? Inez explained, "I think it was Stephen Gan, the art director of Harper's Bazaar, that came to us and said, 'I would love to have a shoot with Gaga where she's really bare, where it's really her,' because he knows her very well; they're great friends. He feels the same way that we do: She is so beautiful, but because of all the stuff around, you don't get the chance to see really the gorgeousness and the person inside in that part of her. For Harper's Bazaar, I think it's a big deal to have a black-and-white cover to begin with, and it's great."

It was an idea that Gaga jumped on quite enthusiastically. "She's at a point in life too where she's very confident and ... everything's going so well and enjoying so much, it's really the right timing too to bare herself like that," the pair added.

Share your thoughts on Gaga's Harper's Bazaar cover in the comments below!

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