Robert Plant 

                                             

Robert Anthony Plant CBE (born 20 August 1948) is an English singer and songwriter, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the English rock band Led Zeppelin for all of its existence from 1968 up until 1980.

                              

Plant enjoyed great success with Led Zeppelin from the late 1960s to the end of the 1970s. He developed a compelling image as the charismatic rock-and-roll front man, similar to those of contemporaries such as Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, Roger Daltrey of the Who, Jim Morrison of the Doors, and Freddie Mercury of Queen.

                    

 With his mane of long blond curly hair and powerful, bare-chested appearance, Plant helped to create the "god of rock and roll" or "rock god" archetype. Although Led Zeppelin dissolved in 1980, Plant occasionally collaborated with Jimmy Page on various projects in later years, including forming a short-lived supergroup with Page and Jeff Beck in 1984, called the Honeydrippers.

                                  

 They released an album called The Honeydrippers: Volume One, and the band had a No. 3 hit with a remake of Phil Phillips' tune "Sea of Love", plus a follow-up hit with a cover of Roy Brown's "Rockin' at Midnight".

A powerful and wide vocal range (particularly evident in his high-registered vocals) has given Plant a successful singing career spanning more than 50 years.

                          

 In 2008, Rolling Stone editors ranked him number 15 on their list of the 100 best singers of all time. In 2011, Rolling Stone readers ranked Plant the greatest of all lead singers. In 2006, Hit Parader magazine named Plant the "Greatest Metal Vocalist of All Time". In 2009, Plant was voted "the greatest voice in rock" in a poll conducted by Planet Rock.

                              

Early life and musical beginnings

Robert Anthony Plant was born on 20 August 1948, in the Black Country town of West Bromwich, Staffordshire, England, to Robert C. Plant, a qualified civil engineer who worked in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, and Annie Celia Plant (née Cain), a Romani woman.He grew up in the Hayley Green area of Halesowen, Worcestershire. 

                     

Plant gained an interest in singing and rock and roll music at an early age; in an interview with Andrew Denton on the Denton talk show in 1994, Plant stated his desire, as a ten-year-old, to be like Elvis Presley;

When I was a kid I used to hide behind the curtains at home at Christmas and I used to try and be Elvis. 

                               

There was a certain ambience between the curtains and the French windows, there was a certain sound there for a ten-year-old. That was all the ambience I got at ten years old ... And I always wanted to be ... a bit similar to that.

He left King Edward VI Grammar School for Boys in Stourbridge in his mid-teens and developed a strong passion for the blues, mainly through his admiration for Willie Dixon, Robert Johnson and early renditions of songs in this genre.

                                              

I suppose I was quite interested in my stamp collection and Romano-British history. I was a little grammar school boy and I could hear this kind of calling through the airwaves.

He abandoned training as a chartered accountant after only two weeks to attend college in an effort to gain more GCE passes and to become part of the English Midlands blues scene.

                     

 "I left home at 16", he said, "and I started my real education musically, moving from group to group, furthering my knowledge of the blues and of other music which had weight and was worth listening to".

Plant's early blues influences included Johnson, Bukka White, Skip James, Jerry Miller, and Sleepy John Estes. Plant had various jobs while pursuing his music career, one of which was working for the major British construction company Wimpey in Birmingham in 1967 laying tarmac on roads. 

                         

He also worked at Woolworth's in Halesowen town for a short period of time. He cut three obscure singles on CBS Records and sang with a variety of bands, including the Crawling King Snakes, which brought him into contact with drummer John Bonham. They both went on to play in the Band of Joy, merging blues with newer psychedelic trends.

                                

Personal Life

Plant married Maureen Wilson on 9 November 1968. The couple had three children: daughter Carmen Jane (1968), (who later married Charlie Jones, Plant's bass player for solo tours); and sons Karac Pendragon (1972–1977), and Logan Romero (1979). The couple divorced in August 1983.

                                         

In 1977, during Led Zeppelin's US tour, his five-year-old son Karac died of a stomach illness. The song "All My Love", co-written with John Paul Jones, is a tribute to him.

In 1991, Robert and Shirley Wilson (sister of ex-wife Maureen) had a son, Jesse Lee.

Plant is interested in Welsh history. He donated money to the creation of a bronze statue of the Welsh prince Owain Glyndŵr at Pennal Church, near Machynlleth, in Wales, unveiled in September 2004.

                             

 He is also understood to have contributed funds to a slate carving of Glyndŵr's coat of arms at the Celtica museum in Machynlleth. Plant is part of a Glyndŵr network, and attends meetings about him in Wales.

In the New Year Honours List 2009, Plant was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire "for services to music" and on 10 July 2009 invested by the Prince of Wales.

                             

On 14 August 2009, football club Wolverhampton Wanderers announced that Plant was to become the club's third vice-president. Plant officially received the honour before kick-off at the club's first match of the season against West Ham United. Plant was five years old when he first visited Molineux Stadium. He recalled in an interview with his local paper, the Express & Star, in August 2010: "I was five when my dad took me down for the first time and Billy Wright waved at me. Honest, he did. And that was it – I was hooked from that moment."

                       

In late 2010, BBC Two aired a documentary titled Robert Plant: By Myself. It features Robert Plant discussing his journey with Led Zeppelin and various projects since.

In a July 2012 interview with The Independent newspaper, Plant stated he "eloped and ran off to Texas" with Band of Joy co-vocalist, American singer Patty Griffin. Plant's UK-based manager told E! News later that Plant was apparently being cheeky when he used the word "eloped" to describe his home life, for "Robert has not married Patty Griffin," instead "He was just referring to the fact that he's been residing in Texas" with her.

                                     

 According to a July 2012 Ultimate Classic Rock article, Plant and Griffin had been dating for over a year, spending half of their time together in Austin, Texas. On 23 August 2014, The Independent indicated Plant had broken up with Griffin: ""Patty and I tried a sort of zig-zag across the Atlantic," Plant told the publication, "but she didn't share my penchant for cider and she used to marvel at the Black Country character I became after four pints of Thatchers. My feelings are very much ones of sadness and regret."

                     

In early 2013, Plant contributed to a community buyout scheme to save the Bath music venue, the Bell Inn.

He currently resides at Shatterford, near Bewdley in the Wyre Forest District of Worcestershire.

                         

In 2020, Plant donated money towards frontline medical supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The money went to the GoFundMe page of a small clothing manufacturer in Kidderminster, England that makes scrubs for local hospitals.