by Andreas Kessaris for Curtains Up
“You very, very rarely meet someone like Plant, who is still fanatical about music after forty years at the top. That’s almost unprecedented.”
-Bill Flanagan
Many years ago I was having a coffee with a friend of mine at a small café on Monkland Avenue in N.D.G. The waitress was a pretty young student from England. I managed to pick her up, and we went out for drinks that night after her shift. What impressed her most about me was that at the time I worked in a record store, (I didn’t tell her it was the most uncool mall store on the island on Montreal, of course). During our date she went on endlessly about bands I never heard of; I just sat there and nodded my head like I knew what she was talking about. And when she asked my opinion I faked my answers with vague double-talk and fancy footwork, but I couldn’t fool the aficionado; to her I was as transparent as saran wrap. Until that moment I believed I was an expert on music. I especially credit a DJ named Claude Rajotte, who also had his own cable TV show called Radio Video in the 1980’s, and was later a VJ on Musique Plus, with teaching me via his various programs about all kinds of music. But I was foolish to think I could never match the knowledge of a British music lover, (the most serious fans in the world). Journalist and author Paul Rees is such a person and the former lead singer of Led Zeppelin is the subject of his latest work, Robert Plant: A Life.
Rees pieced his book together from past conversations with Robert Plant, many conducted by the author himself, with some material taken from other publications, as well as interviews with people who have known the singer over the years, to create a chronicle of the legendary rock icon’s life, both personal and professional. The author begins his book with a clichéd epilogue that left me wondering what I was in for, but it improved from there, and does contain numerous elements and events in Plant’s life of which I was not aware (like how he almost became the lead singer for The Who). Rees also includes segments about the musical and social context of various eras, enough so that a more appropriate title for the book would have been Robert Plant: His Life and Times.
Although Robert Plant: A Life moves at a smooth pace and is never dull, the book at times is over-written, and oddly enough in other places it seems rather sparse. On more than one occasion I was waiting for more detail on a subject or incident, and Rees frustratingly moves on, leaving me pining for more. This unevenness prevails throughout the book.
Rees delves into his vast knowledge of music to give thorough details of album tracks, musicians and concerts that have a sound and feel similar to reviews by a rock critic; in fact most chapters read more like a Rolling Stone feature article than something that belongs in a serious biography. The author also inexplicably and annoyingly begins every chapter with a little teaser quote, (although to be fair that might have been done by the publisher), that adds nothing to the overall experience.
In the end reading Robert Plant: A Life is like eating a well-prepared but small portioned meal: Enjoyable but ultimately unsatisfying.
