The side of a levee in Sacramento, California

A levee, levée (/ˈlɛviː/; French: [ləˈve]), dike (or dyke), embankment, floodbank or stopbank is an elongated naturally occurring ridge or artificially constructed fill or wall, which regulates water levels. It is usually earthen and often parallel to the course of a river in its floodplain or along low-lying coastlines.^[1]

Etymology[link]

Levee[link]

The word levee, from the French word levée (from the feminine past participle of the French verb lever, "to raise"), is used in American English (notably in the Midwest and Deep South). It originated in New Orleans a few years after the city's founding in 1718 and was later adopted by English speakers.^[2] The name derives from the fact the ridges of the levee are raised higher than both the channel and the surrounding floodplains.

Dike[link]

The modern word dike most likely derives from the Dutch word "dijk", with the construction of dikes in the Netherlands well attested as early as the 12th century. The 126 kilometres (78 mi) long Westfriese Omringdijk was completed by 1250, and was formed by connecting existing older dikes. The Roman chronicler Tacitus even mentions that the rebellious Batavi pierced dikes to flood their land and to protect their retreat (AD 70).^[3] The word dijk originally indicated both the trench and the bank. It is closely related to the English verb to dig (EWN).

In Anglo-Saxon, the word dic already existed and was pronounced with a hard c in northern England and as ditch in the south. Similar to Dutch, the English origins of the word lie in digging a trench and forming the upcast soil into a bank alongside it. This practice has meant that the name may be given to either the excavation or the bank. Thus Offa's Dyke is a combined structure and Car Dyke is a trench though it once had raised banks as well. In the midlands and north of England, and in the United States, a dike is what a ditch is in the south, a property boundary marker or small drainage channel. Where it carries a stream, it may be called a running dike as in Rippingale Running Dike, which leads water from the catchwater drain, Car Dyke, to the South Forty Foot Drain in Lincolnshire (TF1427). The Weir Dike is a soak dike in Bourne North Fen, near Twenty and alongside the River Glen, Lincolnshire. In the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads, a dyke may be a drainage ditch or a narrow artificial channel off a river or broad for access or mooring, some longer dykes being named, e.g. Candle Dyke.^[4]

Artificial levees[link]

The main purposes of an artificial levee are to prevent flooding of the adjoining countryside and to slow natural course changes in a waterway to provide reliable shipping lanes for maritime commerce over time; they also confine the flow of the river, resulting in higher and faster water flow. Levees can be mainly found along the sea, where dunes are not strong enough, along rivers for protection against high-floods, along lakes or along polders. Furthermore, levees have been built for the purpose of empoldering, or as a boundary for an inundation area. The latter can be a controlled inundation by the military or a measure to prevent inundation of a larger area surrounded by levees. Levees have also been built as field boundaries and as military defences. More on this type of levee can be found in the article on dry-stone walls.

Levees can be permanent earthworks or emergency constructions (often of sandbags) built hastily in a flood emergency. When such an emergency bank is added on top of an existing levee it is known as a cradge.

Some of the earliest levees were constructed by the Indus Valley Civilization (in Pakistan and North India from circa 2600 BC) on which the agrarian life of the Harappan peoples depended.^[5] Levees were also constructed over 3,000 years ago in ancient Egypt, where a system of levees was built along the left bank of the River Nile for more than 600 miles (970 km), stretching from modern Aswan to the Nile Delta on the shores of the Mediterranean. The Mesopotamian civilizations and ancient China also built large levee systems. Because a levee is only as strong as its weakest point, the height and standards of construction have to be consistent along its length. Some authorities have argued that this requires a strong governing authority to guide the work, and may have been a catalyst for the development of systems of governance in early civilizations. However, others point to evidence of large scale water-control earthen works such as canals and/or levees dating from before King Scorpion in Predynastic Egypt, during which governance was far less centralized.

Levees are usually built by piling earth on a cleared, level surface. Broad at the base, they taper to a level top, where temporary embankments or sandbags can be placed. Because flood discharge intensity increases in levees on both river banks, and because silt deposits raise the level of riverbeds, planning and auxiliary measures are vital. Sections are often set back from the river to form a wider channel, and flood valley basins are divided by multiple levees to prevent a single breach from flooding a large area. A levee made from stones laid in horizontal rows with a bed of thin turf between each of them is known as a spetchel.

Artificial levees require substantial engineering. Their surface must be protected from erosion, so they are planted with vegetation such as Bermuda grass in order to bind the earth together. On the land side of high levees, a low terrace of earth known as a banquette is usually added as another anti-erosion measure. On the river side, erosion from strong waves or currents presents an even greater threat to the integrity of the levee. The effects of erosion are countered by planting suitable vegetation or installing stones, boulders, weighted matting or concrete revetments. Separate ditches or drainage tiles are constructed to ensure that the foundation does not become waterlogged.

River flood prevention[link]

A levee keeps high water on the Mississippi River from flooding Gretna, Louisiana, in March 2005.

Prominent levee systems have been built along the Mississippi River and Sacramento River in the United States, and the Po, Rhine, Meuse River, Rhone, Loire, Vistula, the delta formed by the Rhine, Maas/Meuse and Scheldt in the Netherlands and the Danube in Europe.

The Mississippi levee system represents one of the largest such systems found anywhere in the world. It comprises over 3,500 miles (5,600 km) of levees extending some 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) along the Mississippi, stretching from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to the Mississippi Delta. They were begun by French settlers in Louisiana in the 18th century to protect the city of New Orleans.^[6] The first Louisiana levees were about 3 feet (0.91 m) high and covered a distance of about 50 miles (80 km) along the riverside.^[6] The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in conjunction with the Mississippi River Commission, extended the levee system beginning in 1882 to cover the riverbanks from Cairo, Illinois to the mouth of the Mississippi delta in Louisiana.^[6] By the mid-1980s, they had reached their present extent and averaged 24 feet (7.3 m) in height; some Mississippi levees are as high as 50 feet (15 m). The Mississippi levees also include some of the longest continuous individual levees in the world. One such levee extends southwards from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, for a distance of some 380 miles (610 km).

Coastal flood prevention[link]

Levees are very common on the flatlands bordering the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Canada. The Acadians who settled the area can be credited with construction of most of the levees in the area, created for the purpose of farming the fertile tidal flatlands. These levees are referred to as "aboiteau". In the Lower Mainland around the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, there are levees to protect low-lying land in the Fraser River delta, particularly the city of Richmond on Lulu Island. There are also levees to protect other locations which have flooded in the past, such as land adjacent to the Pitt River and other tributary rivers.

Spur dykes[link]

These typically man-made hydraulic structures are situated to protect against erosion. They are typically placed in alluvial rivers perpendicular, or at an angle, to the bank of the channel or the revetment,^[7] and are used widely along coastlines. There are two common types of spur dykes, permeable and impermeable, depending on the materials used to construct them.

Natural levees[link]

Schematic of natural levee formation by repeated flooding in rivers carrying fine sediments

Natural levees commonly form around lowland rivers and creeks without human intervention. They are elongate ridges of mud and/or silt that form on the river floodplains immediately adjacent to the cut banks. Like artificial levees, they act to reduce the likelihood of floodplain inundation.

Deposition of levees is a natural consequence of the flooding of meandering rivers which carry high proportions of suspended sediment in the form of fine sands, silts, and muds. Because the carrying capacity of a river depends in part on its depth, the sediment in the water which is over the flooded banks of the channel is no longer capable of keeping the same amount of fines in suspension as the main thalweg. The extra fines thus settle out quickly on the parts of the floodplain nearest to the channel. Over a significant number of floods, this will eventually result in the building up of ridges in these positions, and reducing the likelihood of further floods and episodes of levee building.

If aggradation continues to occur in the main channel, this will make levee overtopping more likely again, and the levees can continue to build up. In some cases this can result in the channel bed eventually rising above the surrounding floodplains, penned in only by the levees around it; an example is the Yellow River in China near the sea, where oceangoing ships appear to sail high above the plain on the elevated river.

Levees are common in any river with a high suspended sediment fraction, and thus are intimately associated with meandering channels, which also are more likely to occur where a river carries large fractions of suspended sediment. For similar reasons, they are also common in tidal creeks, where tides bring in large amounts of coastal silts and muds. High spring tides will cause flooding, and result in the building up of levees.

Levee failures and breaches[link]

Both natural and man-made levees can fail in a number of ways. The most frequent (and dangerous) is a levee breach. Here, a part of the levee actually breaks or is eroded away, leaving a large opening for water to flood land otherwise protected by the levee. A breach can be a sudden or gradual failure, caused either by surface erosion or by subsurface weakness in the levee. A breach can leave a fan-shaped deposit of sediment radiating away from the breach, described as a crevasse splay. In natural levees, once a breach has occurred, the gap in the levee will remain until it is again filled in by levee building processes. This increases the chances of future breaches occurring in the same location. Breaches can be the location of meander cutoffs if the river flow direction is permanently diverted through the gap.

Sometimes levees are said to fail when water overtops the crest of the levee. This will cause flooding on the floodplains, but because it does not damage the levee has fewer consequences for future flooding.

See also[link]

• Breakwater (structure)
• Bridge scour
• Bunding
• Dam
• Floodway
• Jetty
• Sleeper dike
• Subsidence
• Trench

References[link]

Notes[link]

General references[link]

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Dikes

• "Well Diggers Trick", June 1951, Popular Science article on how flood control engineers were using an old method to protect flood levees along rivers from seepage undermining the levvee - i.e. drawings and illustrations
• "Design and Construction of Levees" US Army Engineer Manual EM-1110-2-1913, 30 April 2000, about the design and construction of levees.

v t e Coastal management Management Coastal management Accretion Coastal engineering Integrated coastal zone management Managed retreat Submersion Hard engineering A-jack Accropode Akmon Artificial reef Breachway Breakwater Cliff stabilization Dolos Flood wall Floodgate Gabion Groyne Levee Hard engineering Honeycomb sea wall Hudson's equation Revetment Riprap Seawall Tetrapod Training wall Xbloc Soft engineering Beach nourishment Beach drainage Sand dune stabilization Soft engineering Soft shore remediation Related topics Beach evolution Coastal erosion Land reclamation Longshore transport Modern recession of beaches

Alison Krauss
Alison Krauss at MerleFest, 2007
Background information
Born	(1971-07-23) July 23, 1971 (age 40) Decatur, Illinois, US
Occupations	Musician, Songwriter, Producer, Bandleader
Instruments	Vocals, Fiddle, Viola
Years active	1984–present
Labels	Rounder
Associated acts	Dan Tyminski, Robert Plant, John Waite, Rhonda Vincent, Dolly Parton, Brad Paisley, Ricky Skaggs, Vince Gill, Jerry Douglas
Website	AlisonKrauss.com

Alison Maria Krauss (born July 23, 1971) is an American bluegrass-country singer, songwriter and fiddler. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of ten and recording for the first time at fourteen. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in 1987. She was invited to join the band with which she still performs, Alison Krauss and Union Station (AKUS), and later released her first album with them as a group in 1989.

She has released fourteen albums, appeared on numerous soundtracks, and helped renew interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Her soundtrack performances have led to further popularity, including the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, an album also credited with raising American interest in bluegrass, and the Cold Mountain soundtrack, which led to her performance at the 2004 Academy Awards. As of 2012, she has won 27 Grammy Awards from 41 nominations, making her the most awarded living recipient, and three back of the most honoured artist, classical conductor Sir Georg Solti.^[1] She is also the most awarded singer and the most awarded female artist in Grammy history.^[2] At the time of her first award, at the 1991 Grammy Awards, she was the second youngest winner ever (currently tied as third youngest).

Biography[link]

Alison Maria Krauss^[3] was born in Decatur, Illinois. Her parents are originally from Columbus, Mississippi. Krauss was raised in Champaign, Illinois. She began studying classical violin at age five but soon switched to bluegrass. Krauss said she first became involved with music because "[my] mother tried to find interesting things for me to do" and "wanted to get me involved in music, in addition to art and sports^[4] At the age eight she started entering local talent contests, and at ten she had her own band. At 13 she won the Walnut Valley Festival Fiddle Championship,^[5] and the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass in America named her the "Most Promising Fiddler in the Midwest".^{[citation needed]} Krauss first met Dan Tyminski around 1984 at a festival held by the Society. Every current member of her band, Union Station, first met her at these festivals.^[6]

1985–1991: Early career[link]

Krauss made her recording debut in 1985 on the independent album, Different Strokes, featuring her brother Viktor, Swamp Weiss and Jim Hoiles. From the age of 12 she performed with bassist and songwriter John Pennell in a band called "Silver Rail", replacing their previous fiddler Andrea Zonn.^[7] Pennell later changed the band's name to Union Station after another band was discovered with the name Silver Rail.^[8] Pennell remains one of her favorite songwriters^[9] and wrote some of her early work including the popular "Every Time You Say Goodbye".

Later that year she signed to Rounder Records, and in 1987, at 16, she released her debut album Too Late to Cry with Union Station as her backup band.^[10]

Krauss' debut solo album was followed shortly by her first group album with Union Station in 1989 Two Highways.^[11] The album includes the traditional tunes, Wild Bill Jones and Beaumont Rag, along with a bluegrass interpretation of The Allman Brothers' "Midnight Rider". Alison Krauss and Union Station would later perform at the 1989 Newport Folk Festival.^{[citation needed]}

Krauss' contract with Rounder required her to alternate between releasing a solo album and an album with Union Station, and she released the solo album I've Got That Old Feeling in 1990. It was her first album to rise onto the Billboard charts, peaking in the top seventy-five on the country chart. The album also was a notable point in her career as she earned her first Grammy Award, the single "Steel Rails" was her first single tracked by Billboard, and the title single "I've Got That Old Feeling" was the first song for which she recorded a music video.

1992–1999: Rising success[link]

Krauss' second Union Station album Everytime You Say Goodbye was released in 1992, and she went on to win her second Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album of the year. She then joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1993 at the age of 21.^[11] She was the youngest cast member at the time, and the first bluegrass artist to join the Opry in twenty-nine years.^{[citation needed]} She also collaborated on a project with the Cox Family in 1994, a bluegrass album called I Know Who Holds Tomorrow. Mandolin and guitar player Dan Tyminski replaced Tim Stafford in Union Station in 1994. Late in the year, Krauss recorded with the band Shenandoah on its single "Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart", which brought her to the country music Top Ten for the first time. Also in 1994, Krauss collaborated with Suzy Bogguss, Kathy Mattea, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to contribute "Teach Your Children" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1997, she recorded vocals and violin for "Half a Mind", on Tommy Shaw's 7 Deadly Zens album.

Now That I've Found You: A Collection, a compilation of older releases and some covers of her favorite works by other artists, was released in 1995. Some of these covers include Bad Company's "Oh Atlanta", The Foundations' & Dan Schafer's "Baby, Now That I've Found You", which was used in the Australian hit comedy movie The Castle, and The Beatles' "I Will."^[12] A cover of Keith Whitley's "When You Say Nothing at All" reached the top five on the Billboard country chart;^{[citation needed]} the album peaked in the top fifteen on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart, and sold two million copies to become Krauss' first double-platinum album.^{[citation needed]} Krauss also was nominated for four Country Music Association Awards and won all of them.^{[citation needed]}

So Long So Wrong, another Union Station album, was released in 1997 and won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album. One critic said its sound was "rather untraditional" and "likely [to] change quite a few . . . minds about bluegrass."^[13] Included on the album is the track "It Doesn't Matter", which was featured in the second season premiere episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer^[14] and was included on the Buffy soundtrack in 1999.

Her next solo release in 1999, Forget About It, included one of her two tracks to appear on the Billboard adult contemporary chart, "Stay".^{[citation needed]} The album was certified gold, and charted within the top seventy-five of the Billboard 200 and in the top five of the country chart.^{[citation needed]} In addition, the track "That Kind of Love" was included in another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.^[15]

2000–present: Current career[link]

Adam Steffey left Union Station in 1998, and was replaced with renowned Dobro player Jerry Douglas.^[16] Douglas had provided studio back-up to Krauss's records since 1987's Too Late To Cry. Their next album, New Favorite, was released on August 14, 2001. The album went on to win the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album, with the single "The Lucky One" winning a Grammy as well. New Favorite was followed up by the double platinum double album Live in 2002 and a release of a DVD of the same live performance in 2003. Both the album and the DVD were recorded during a performance at The Louisville Palace and both the album and DVD have been certified double Platinum. Also in 2002 she played a singing voice for one of the characters in "Eight Crazy Nights"

Lonely Runs Both Ways was released in 2004, and eventually became another Alison Krauss & Union Station gold certified album. Ron Block described Lonely Runs Both Ways as "pretty much... what we've always done" in terms of song selection and the style in which those songs were recorded.^{[citation needed]} Krauss believes the group "was probably the most unprepared we've ever been" for the album and that songs were chosen as needed rather than planned beforehand.^[4] She also performed a duet with Brad Paisley on his album Mud on the Tires in the single "Whiskey Lullaby". The single was quickly ranked in the top fifty of the Billboard Hot 100 and the top five of the Hot Country Songs, and won the Country Music Association Awards for "Best Musical Event" and "Best Music Video" of the year.^{[citation needed]}

Krauss recorded a collaborative album, Raising Sand with Robert Plant in 2007 which would ultimately be RIAA certified platinum. Raising Sand was nominated for and won 5 Grammys at the 51st Grammy Awards including Album of the Year, Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album, and Record of the Year ("Please Read the Letter"). Krauss and Plant recorded a Crossroads special in October 2007 for the Country Music Television network which first aired on February 12, 2008. The pair are currently working on a new album.^[17] Alison Krauss has announced a new album release called Paper Airplane with Union Station on April 12, 2011, the follow-up album to "Lonely Runs Both Ways" (2004)

Personal life[link]

Alison Krauss was married to Pat Bergeson from 1997-2001. Together they had a son in 1999.

Other work[link]

Alison Krauss on stage with Robert Plant at Birmingham's NIA, 5th May 2008

Krauss has made multiple guest appearances on other records with lead vocals, harmony vocals, or fiddle playing. In 1993 she recorded vocals for the Phish song "If I Could" in Los Angeles.^[18] In 1997 she contributed harmony vocals in both English and Irish to Irish traditional band Altan's Runaway Sunday album. She has contributed to numerous motion picture soundtracks, most notably the soundtrack O Brother, Where Art Thou? in 2000. She and co-vocalist Dan Tyminski contributed multiple tracks to the soundtrack, including "I'll Fly Away" (with Gillian Welch), "Down to the River to Pray", and "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow".^{[citation needed]} She also makes a guest appearance on Heart's March 2010 concert DVD "Night At Sky Church", providing the lead vocals for the song "These Dreams".^[19]

In the film, Tyminski's vocals on "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" were used for George Clooney's character.^[20] The soundtrack sold over seven million copies and won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2002.^{[citation needed]} The unexpected success of the album has been partially credited, as was Krauss herself,^[21] with bringing a new interest in bluegrass to the United States. She has said, however, that she believes Americans already liked bluegrass and other less-heard musical genres, and that the film merely provided easy exposure to the music.^[22] She did not appear in the movie, at her own request, as she was nine months pregnant during its filming.^[23]

In 2007, Krauss released the anthology A Hundred Miles Or More: A Collection which was a collection of soundtrack work, duets with artists such as John Waite, James Taylor, Brad Paisley and esteemed fiddle player Natalie MacMaster, and newer tracks.^{[citation needed]} The album was very commercially successful, but was received with a lukewarm reception from critics.^{[citation needed]} One of the tracks, "Missing You", a duet with Waite (and a cover of his hit single from 1984), was similarly received as a single.^{[citation needed]} On August 11, television network Great American Country aired a one-hour special, "Alison Krauss: A Hundred Miles or More" based on the album and featured many of the album's duets and solo performances.^{[citation needed]}

Other soundtracks for which Krauss has performed include Twister, The Prince of Egypt, Eight Crazy Nights, Mona Lisa Smile, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Alias, Bambi II and Cold Mountain. She also contributed the song "Jubilee" to the 2004 documentary Paper Clips. The Cold Mountain songs "The Scarlet Tide" by T-Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello, and "You Will Be My Ain True Love", by her and Sting were nominated for an Academy Award, and she performed both songs at the 76th Academy Awards, the first with Costello and Burnett and the other with Sting.^[24] She also worked as a producer for Nickel Creek on their debut self-titled album in 2000 and the follow-up This Side in 2002, which won Krauss her first Grammy as a music producer.^{[citation needed]}

Reception and influences[link]

Krauss's earliest musical experience was as an instrumentalist, though her style has grown to focus more on her vocals^[11] with a band providing most of the instrumentation. Musicians she enjoys include Lou Gramm of Foreigner and Paul Rodgers of Bad Company.^[25][26][27] Krauss' family listened to "folk records" while she was growing up, but she had friends who exposed her to groups such as AC/DC, Carly Simon, The Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and ELO.^[28] She cites Dolly Parton, with whom she has since collaborated a number of times, as a major influence. Some credit Krauss and Union Station, at least partially, with a recent revival of interest in bluegrass music in the United States.^[21] Despite being together for nearly two decades and winning numerous awards, she said the group was "just beginning right now" (in 2002) because "in spite of all the great things that have happened for the band, [she] feel[s] musically it's just really beginning."^[22] Although she alternates between solo releases and works with the band, she has said there is no difference in her involvement between the two.^[23]

As a group, AKUS have been called "American favourites," "world-beaters,"^[29] and "the tightest band around."^[30] While they have been successful as a group, many reviews note Krauss still "remains the undisputed star and rock-solid foundation" and have described her as the "band's focus"^[31] with an "angelic"^[30] voice that "flows like honey".^[31] Her work has been compared to that of The Cox Family, Bill Monroe, and Del McCoury,^{[citation needed]} and has in turn been credited with influencing various "Newgrass" artists including Nickel Creek, for which she acted as record producer on two of their albums.^[32] In addition to her work with Nickel Creek, she has acted as producer to the Cox Family, Reba McEntire and Alan Jackson.^[33] Adam Sweeting of The Guardian has said Krauss and Union Station are "superb when they stick to hoedowns and hillbilly music, but much less convincing when they lurch towards the middle of the road,"^[34] and Blender magazine has said the "flavorless repertoire [Krauss] sings... steers her toward Lite FM".^[35] In addition, Q magazine and The Onion AV Club have said their newer releases are "pretty much the usual," and that although Krauss is generally "adventurous," these recent releases contain nothing to "alienate the masses".^[36]

Voice, themes, and musical style[link]

Krauss possesses a soprano^[37] voice which has been described as "angelic".^[30] She has said her musical influences include J. D. Crowe, Ricky Skaggs, and Tony Rice.^[38] Many of her songs are described as sad,^[39] and are often about love, especially lost love. Though she has a close involvement with her group and a long career in music, she rarely performs music she has written herself. She has also described her general approach to constructing an album as starting with a single song and selecting other tracks based on the first, to give the final album a somewhat consistent theme and mood.^[23][40] She most commonly performs in the bluegrass and country genres, though she has had two songs on the adult contemporary charts, has worked with rock artists such as Phish^[11] and Sting,^[24] and is sometimes said to stray into pop music.^[7][41]

Music videos[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2010)

File:AKUS Goodbye is All We Have.jpg

The video for "Goodbye is All We Have" shows the group traveling, meeting at a crossroads, playing the song, and walking away together.  Audio sample (help·info)

Krauss did not think she would make music videos at the beginning of her career, and after recording her first she was convinced it was so bad that she would never do another. Nonetheless, she has gone on to make further videos. Many of the first videos she saw were by bluegrass artists, although Dan Tyminski has noted that the video for Thriller was very popular at the time she was first exposed to music videos. She has made suggestions on the style or theme to some videos, though she tends to leave such decisions up to the director of the particular video. The group chooses directors by seeking out people who have previously directed videos bandmembers have enjoyed. The director for a video to "If I Didn't Know Any Better" from Lonely Runs Both Ways, for example, was selected because Krauss enjoyed work he had done with Def Leppard, and she wondered what he could do with their music. While style decisions are generally left to the various directors of the videos, many —including for "The Lucky One", "Restless", "Goodbye is All We Have", "New Favorite", and "If I Didn't Know Any Better"—follow a pattern. In all of these videos Krauss walks, sometimes interacting with other people, while the rest of the band follows her.^[6][42]

Performances[link]

Krauss has said she used to dislike working in the studio where she had to play the same song repeatedly, but has come to like studio work roughly the same as live stage performances. Her own favorite concert experiences include watching three Foreigner concerts during a single tour, a Dolly Parton concert, and a Larry Sparks concert.^[43] She appeared on Austin City Limits in 1992 and opened the show in 1995 with Union Station.^[44] The New Favorite tour, after AKUS' album of the same name, was planned to start September 12, 2001 in Cincinnati, Ohio, but was delayed until September 28 in Savannah, Georgia following the September 11 terrorist attacks^[45] Krauss also took part in the Down from the Mountain tour in 2002, which featured many artists from the O Brother, Where Art Thou.^[46][47] Down from the Mountain was followed by the Great High Mountain Tour, which was composed of musicians from both O Brother and Cold Mountain, including Krauss.^[42] She has also given several notable smaller performances including at Carnegie Hall (with the Grand Ole Opry),^[48] on Lifetime Television in a concert of female performers, on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion^[49] where she sang two songs not previously recorded on any of her albums, and a performance at the White House attended by then-President Bill Clinton and then-Vice President Al Gore.^[50]

Awards[link]

Alison Krauss has won a record twenty-seven Grammy Awards^[51] over the course of her career as a solo artist, as a group with Union Station, as a duet with Robert Plant, and as a record producer. She's currently tied with Quincy Jones as the second most winner of Grammy Awards. Only the late classical conductor Sir Georg Solti has more overall Grammys (31).^[52] She overtook Aretha Franklin for the most female wins at the 46th Grammy Awards where Krauss won three, bringing her total at the time to seventeen (Franklin won her sixteenth that night).^[53] The Recording Academy (which presents the Grammy Awards) presented her with a special musical achievement honor in 2005.^[54] She has also won 14 International Bluegrass Music Association Awards,^[55] 8 Country Music Association Awards,^[56][57] 2 Gospel Music Association Awards,^{[citation needed]} 2 CMT Music Awards,^[58][59][60] 2 Academy of Country Music Awards,^[61] and 1 Canadian Country Music Award.^[62] Country Music Television ranked Krauss 12th on their "40 Greatest Women of Country Music" list in 2002.^[63]

At the 76th Academy Awards in February 2004, where she performed two nominated songs from the Cold Mountain soundtrack, Alison Krauss was chosen by Hollywood shoe designer Stuart Weitzman to wear a pair of $2 million 'Cinderella' sandals with 4½ inch clear glass stiletto heels and two straps adorned with 565 Kwiat diamonds set in platinum. Feeling like a rather unglamorous choice, Krauss said, "When I first heard, I was like, 'What were they thinking?' I have the worst feet of anybody who will be there that night!" In addition to the fairy-tale-inspired shoes, Weitzman outfitted Krauss with a Palm Trēo 600 smartphone, bejeweled with 3,000 clear-and-topaz-colored Swarovski crystals. The shoes were returned, but Krauss kept the crystal-covered phone. Weitzman chose Krauss to show off his fashions at the urging of his daughters, who are fans of Krauss' music.^[64][65]

Discography[link]

• 1985: Different Strokes
• 1987: Too Late to Cry
• 1989: Two Highways
• 1990: I've Got That Old Feeling
• 1992: Every Time You Say Goodbye
• 1994: I Know Who Holds Tomorrow
• 1995: Now That I've Found You: A Collection
• 1997: So Long So Wrong
• 1999: Forget About It
• 2001: New Favorite
• 2002 "Live"
• 2004: Lonely Runs Both Ways
• 2007: A Hundred Miles or More: A Collection
• 2007: Raising Sand
• 2011: Paper Airplane

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Alison Krauss

• Official site
• Rounder Records site for Alison Krauss
• Alison Krauss on Allmusic database
• Alison Krauss at the Internet Movie Database

Robert Plant
Plant at Birmingham's Symphony Hall (2010)
Background information
Birth name	Robert Anthony Plant
Born	(1948-08-20) 20 August 1948 (age 63) West Bromwich, Staffordshire (now West Midlands), England
Genres	Rock, hard rock, heavy metal, blues rock, folk rock, world music, country rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician
Instruments	Vocals, harmonica, percussion, guitar, bass guitar
Years active	1966–present
Labels	Atlantic, Swan Song, Es Paranza, Sanctuary, Mercury, Universal, Rounder
Associated acts	Band of Joy, Led Zeppelin, The Honeydrippers, Page and Plant, Strange Sensation, Alison Krauss, The New Yardbirds
Website	Official website

Robert Anthony Plant, CBE (born 20 August 1948) is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist of the iconic rock band Led Zeppelin. He has also had a successful solo career. In 2007, Plant released Raising Sand, an album produced by T-Bone Burnett with American bluegrass soprano Alison Krauss, which won the 2009 Grammy Award for Album of the Year at the 51st Grammy Awards.^[1]

With a career spanning more than 40 years, Plant is regarded as one of the most significant singers in the history of rock music, and has influenced contemporaries and later singers such as Freddie Mercury and Axl Rose.^[2] In 2006, heavy metal magazine Hit Parader named Plant the "Greatest Metal Vocalist of All-Time".^[3] In 2009, Plant was voted "the greatest voice in rock" in a poll conducted by Planet Rock.^[4][5] In 2011, a Rolling Stone readers' pick placed Plant in first place of the magazine's "Best Lead Singers of All Time".^[6]

Life and career[link]

Early career[link]

Plant was born in the Black Country town of West Bromwich (then in Staffordshire now in West Midlands) to parents Robert C. who worked as a civil engineer^[7] and Annie C. (Cain) Plant, but grew up in Kidderminster, in Worcestershire. Plant gained an interest in singing and rock and roll music at an early age.

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... I think! And I always wanted to be a curtain, a bit similar to that.^[8]

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 rendition 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^[9]

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.^[10][11] "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."^[12]

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 Woolworths in Halesowen town for a short period of time. He cut three obscure singles on CBS Records^[13] 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. Though his early career met with no commercial success, word quickly spread about the "young man with the powerful voice".

Led Zeppelin (1968–1980)[link]

Early years[link]

Plant with Led Zeppelin

In 1968, the guitarist Jimmy Page was in search of a lead singer for his new band and met Plant after being turned down by his first choice, Terry Reid, who referred him to a show at a teacher training college in Birmingham— where Plant was singing in a band named Hobbstweedle.^[14] Page explained:

When I auditioned him and heard him sing, I immediately thought there must be something wrong with him personality-wise or that he had to be impossible to work with, because I just could not understand why, after he told me he'd been singing for a few years already, he hadn't become a big name yet. So I had him down to my place for a little while, just to sort of check him out, and we got along great. No problems.^[15]

According to Plant:

I was appearing at this college when Peter and Jimmy turned up and asked me if I'd like to join The Yardbirds. I knew The Yardbirds had done a lot of work in America – which to me meant audiences who would want to know what I might have to offer – so naturally I was very interested.^[12]

derivative of Plant's feather sigil used in the Led Zeppelin IV album

Plant and Page immediately hit it off with a shared musical passion and began their writing collaboration with reworkings of earlier blues songs, although Plant would receive no songwriting credits on the band's first album, allegedly because he was still under contract to CBS Records at the time. Plant brought along John Bonham as drummer, and they were joined by John Paul Jones, who had previously worked with Page as a studio musician. Jones called Page on the phone before they checked out Plant, and Page hired Jones immediately.

Initially dubbed the "New Yardbirds" in 1968, the band soon came to be known as Led Zeppelin. The band's self-titled debut album hit the charts in 1969 and is widely credited as a catalyst for the heavy metal genre. Plant has commented that it is unfair for people to think of Zeppelin as heavy metal, as almost a third of their music was acoustic.^[16]

In 1975, Plant and his wife Maureen (now divorced) were seriously injured in a car crash in Rhodes, Greece. This significantly affected the production of Led Zeppelin's seventh album Presence for a few months while he recovered, and forced the band to cancel the remaining tour dates for the year.

In July 1977 his son Karac died aged five of a stomach infection while Plant was engaged on Led Zeppelin's concert tour of the United States. It was a devastating loss for the family. Plant retreated to his home in the Midlands and for months afterward he questioned his future.^[17] Karac's death later inspired him to write the song "All My Love" in tribute, featured on Led Zeppelin's final studio LP, 1979's In Through the Out Door.

Lyrics[link]

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Plant did not begin writing song lyrics with Led Zeppelin until the making of Led Zeppelin II, in 1969. According to Jimmy Page:

The most important thing about Led Zeppelin II is that up to that point I'd contributed lyrics. Robert hadn't written before, and it took a lot of ribbing to get him into writing, which was funny. And then, on the second LP, he wrote the words of Thank You. He said, "I'd like to have a crack at this and write it for my wife."^[18]

Plant's lyrics with Led Zeppelin were often mystical, philosophical and spiritual, alluding to events in classical and Norse mythology, such as "Immigrant Song", which refers to Valhalla and Viking conquests. However, the song "No Quarter" is often misunderstood to refer to the god Thor; the song actually refers to Mount Thor (which is named after the god). Another example is "The Rain Song".

Plant was also influenced by J. R. R. Tolkien, whose book series inspired lyrics in some early Led Zeppelin songs. Most notably "The Battle of Evermore", "Misty Mountain Hop", "No Quarter", "Ramble On" and "Over the Hills and Far Away" contain verses referencing Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Conversely, Plant sometimes used more straightforward blues-based lyrics dealing primarily with sexual innuendo, as in "The Lemon Song", "Trampled Under Foot", and "Black Dog".

Welsh mythology also forms a basis of Plant's interest in mystical lyrics. He grew up close to the Welsh border and would often take summer trips to Snowdonia. Plant bought a Welsh sheep farm in 1973, and began taking Welsh lessons and looking into the mythology of the land (such as Black Book of Carmarthen, Book of Taliesin, etc.) Plant's first son, Karac, was named after the Welsh warrior Caratacus. The song "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" is named after the 18th Century Welsh cottage Bron-Yr-Aur owned by a friend of his father; it later inspired the song "Bron-Yr-Aur". The songs "Misty Mountain Hop", "That's the Way", and early dabblings in what would become "Stairway to Heaven" were written in Wales and lyrically reflect Plant's mystical view of the land. Critic Steve Turner suggests that Plant's early and continued experiences in Wales served as the foundation for his broader interest in the mythologies he revisits in his lyrics (including those myth systems of Tolkien and the Norse).^[19]

The passion for diverse musical experiences drove Plant to explore Africa, specifically Marrakesh in Morocco where he encountered Umm Kulthum.

I was intrigued by the scales, initially, and obviously the vocal work. The way she sang, the way she could hold a note, you could feel the tension, you could tell that everybody, the whole orchestra, would hold a note until she wanted to change.^[20]

That musical inspiration eventually culminated in "Kashmir". Both he and Jimmy Page revisited these influences during their reunion album No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded in 1994. In his solo career, Plant again tapped from these influences many times, most notably in the 2002 album, Dreamland.

Arguably one of Plant's most significant achievements with Led Zeppelin was his contribution to the track "Stairway to Heaven", an epic rock ballad featured on Led Zeppelin IV that drew influence from folk, blues, Celtic traditional music and hard rock among other genres. Most of the lyrics of the song were written spontaneously by Plant in 1970 at Headley Grange. While never released as a single, the song has topped charts as the greatest song of all time on various polls around the world.

Plant is also recognised for his lyrical improvisation in Led Zeppelin's live performances, often singing verses previously unheard on studio recordings. One of the most famous Led Zeppelin musical devices involves Plant's vocal mimicking of band mate Jimmy Page's guitar effects. This can be heard in the songs "How Many More Times", "Dazed and Confused", "The Lemon Song", "You Shook Me", "Nobody's Fault but Mine" and "Sick Again".

He is also known for his light-hearted, humorous, and unusual on-stage banter, often referred to as "plantations". Plant often discusses the origin and background of the songs during his shows, and sometimes provides social comment as well. He frequently talks about American blues musicians as his inspiration, mentioning artists like Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf, Blind Willie Johnson, and Willie Dixon at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony and the 2007 Ahmet Ertegün Tribute Concert with Led Zeppelin.

Stage persona[link]

Plant (left) with Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page performing live

Plant enjoyed great success with Led Zeppelin throughout the 1970s and developed a compelling image as the charismatic rock-and-roll front man, similar to his contemporary in The Who, singer Roger Daltrey (who adopted the look in the late 1960s), Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, and his other fellow contemporary, Jim Morrison of The Doors.^[21] With his mane of long blond hair and powerful, bare-chested appearance, Plant helped to create the "god of rock and roll" or "rock god" archetype. On stage, Plant was particularly active in live performances, often dancing, jumping, skipping, snapping his fingers, clapping, making emphatic gestures to emphasise a lyric or cymbal crash, throwing back his head, or placing his hands on his hips. As the 1960s–1970s progressed he, along with the other members of Led Zeppelin, became increasingly flamboyant on-stage and wore more elaborate, colourful clothing and jewellery.

According to Classic Rock magazine, "once [Plant] had a couple of US tours under his belt, 'Percy' Plant swiftly developed a staggering degree of bravado and swagger that irrefutably enhanced Led Zeppelin's rapidly burgeoning appeal."^[12] In 1994, during his "Unledded" tour with Jimmy Page, Plant himself reflected tongue-in-cheek upon his Led Zeppelin showmanship:

I can't take my whole persona as a singer back then very seriously. It's not some great work of beauty and love to be a rock-and-roll singer. So I got a few moves from Elvis and one or two from Sonny Boy Williamson II and Howlin' Wolf and threw them all together.^[22]

One of the oddest awards he's received is the Rock Scene Magazine "Chest O Rama". Readers of the magazine had to decide who had the best chest in rock and Plant was the winner. When they contacted him about it, he replied: "I'm really greatly honoured although it's hard for me to be eloquent on the subject of my chest."^[23]

Solo career (since 1982)[link]

As a solo artist[link]

After the break-up of Led Zeppelin in 1980 (following the death of John Bonham), Plant pursued a successful solo career beginning with Pictures at Eleven in 1982, followed by 1983's The Principle of Moments. Popular tracks from this period include "Big Log" (a Top 20 hit in 1983), "In the Mood" (1983), "Little by Little" (from 1985's Shaken 'n' Stirred), "Far Post" (originally only on the B-side of "Burning Down One Side" but popularised by airplay on album-oriented rock stations), "Tall Cool One" (a No. 25 hit off 1988's Now and Zen) and "I Believe" (from 1993's Fate of Nations), another song written for and dedicated to his late son, Karac. In 1984, Plant formed a short-lived all-star group with Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck called The Honeydrippers, who had a No. 3 hit with a remake of the Phil Phillips' tune, "Sea of Love" and a followup hit with a cover of Roy Brown's "Rockin' at Midnight". Although Plant avoided performing Led Zeppelin songs through much of this period (he occasionally would improvise his unique Zeppelin screams into his set), his tours in 1983 (with drummer Phil Collins) and 1985 were very successful, often performing to sold-out arena-sized venues.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, Plant co-wrote three solo albums with keyboardist/songwriter Phil Johnstone. Now and Zen, Manic Nirvana, and Fate of Nations (featuring Moya Brennan of Clannad). It was Johnstone who talked Plant into playing Led Zeppelin songs in his live shows, something Plant had resisted, not wanting to be forever known as "the former Led Zeppelin vocalist."

Although Led Zeppelin split in 1980, Plant and Page occasionally collaborated on various projects, including The Honeydrippers: Volume One album in 1984. In the spring 2 years later Robert performed at the Birmingham Heart Beat Charity Concert 1986. The pair again worked together in the studio on the 1988 Page solo effort, Outrider, and in the same year Page contributed to Plant's album Now and Zen. Also, on 15 May 1988 Plant appeared with Page as a member of Led Zeppelin (and in his own right as a solo artist) at the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary concert.

As Page and Plant (1994–1998)[link]

Page and Plant became a full-fledged performing act from 1994 through 1998, releasing the Unledded album in 1994 and following with an enormously successful tour in 1995: Fourteen years of speculation from their fans and occasional sniping between the two former members ended when Jimmy Page and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin reconvened their former musical partnership to produce No Quarter. Having long resisted offers from MTV to reform to do an Unplugged show, they finally accepted as part of a deal that also allowed them to visit Morocco to record new material. The album combines the results of both of these projects. The Led Zeppelin material features new arrangements and new instrumentation, including strings, Egyptian musicians and the haunting vocals of British-Asian star Najma Akhtar. Page and Plant recorded their only post-Zeppelin album of original material on the 1998 album, Walking into Clarksdale, an effort that was unsuccessful commercially, leading Plant to return to his solo career. A song from this album, "Please Read the Letter", was re-recorded by Plant with Alison Krauss, winning the 2009 Grammy Award for Record of the Year.

With Priory of Brion (1999–2000)[link]

Starting in mid-1999, Plant performed until the end of 2000 at several small venues with his folk-rock band, named Priory of Brion.

In 1999, Plant contributed to the tribute album for Moby Grape co-founder Skip Spence, who was terminally ill. The album, More Oar: A Tribute to the Skip Spence Album (Birdman, 1999), with the album title referring to Spence's only solo album, Oar (Columbia, 1969), contained Plant's version of Spence's "Little Hands". Plant had been an admirer of Spence and Moby Grape since the release of Moby Grape's eponymous 1967 debut album.^[24]

In 2001, Plant appeared on Afro Celt Sound System's album Volume 3: Further in Time. The song "Life Begin Again" features a duet with Welsh folksinger Julie Murphy, emphasising Plant's recurring interest in Welsh culture (Murphy would also tour in support of Plant).

With The Strange Sensation (2001–2007)[link]

In 2002, with his then newly-formed band Strange Sensation, Plant released a widely acclaimed collection of mostly blues and folk remakes, Dreamland. Contrasting with this lush collection of often relatively obscure remakes, the second album with Strange Sensation, Mighty ReArranger (2005), contains new, original songs. Both have received some of the most favourable reviews of Plant's solo career and four Grammy nominations, two in 2003 and two in 2006.

Plant and the Strange Sensation at the Green Man Festival, 2007.

As a former member of Led Zeppelin, along with Page and John Paul Jones, Plant received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005 and the Polar Music Prize in 2006.

From 2001 to 2007, Plant actively toured the US & Europe with The Strange Sensation. His sets typically included recent, but not only, solo material and plenty of Led Zeppelin favourites, often with new and expanded arrangements. A DVD titled Soundstage: Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation, featuring his Soundstage performance (filmed at the Soundstage Studios in Chicago on 16 September 2005), was released in October 2006.

On 23 June 2006, Plant was the headliner (backed by Ian Hunter's band) at the Benefit For Arthur Lee concert at New York's Beacon Theatre, a show which raised money for Lee's medical expenses from his bout with leukaemia. Plant and band performed thirteen songs – five by Arthur Lee & Love, five Led Zeppelin songs and three others including a duet with Ian Hunter. At the show, Plant told the audience of his great admiration for Arthur Lee dating back to the mid-Sixties. Lee died of his illness six weeks after the concert.

An expansive box set of his solo work, Nine Lives, was released in November 2006, which expanded all of his albums with various b-sides, demos, and live cuts. It was accompanied by a DVD. All his solo works were re-released with these extra tracks individually.

In 2007, Plant contributed two tracks to the Fats Domino tribute album Goin' Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino, "It Keeps Rainin'" with the Lil' Band O' Gold and "Valley of Tears" with The Soweto Gospel Choir.

With Alison Krauss (2007–2008)[link]

Robert Plant on stage with Alison Krauss at Birmingham's NIA, 5 May 2008

From 2007–2008, Plant recorded and performed with bluegrass star Alison Krauss. A duet album, Raising Sand, was released on 23 October 2007 on Rounder Records. The album, recorded in Nashville and Los Angeles and produced by T-Bone Burnett, includes performances of lesser-known material from R&B, Blues, folk, and country songwriters including Mel Tillis, Townes Van Zandt, Gene Clark, Tom Waits, Doc Watson, Little Milton and The Everly Brothers. The song "Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)" from Raising Sand won a Grammy for Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals in 2008. Raising Sand also won Album of the Year at the 51st Grammy Awards.^[25] The album has been successful critically and commercially, and was certified platinum on 4 March 2008.

Plant and Krauss began an extended tour of the US and Europe in April 2008, playing music from Raising Sand and other American roots music as well as reworked Led Zeppelin tunes. The album was nominated for the Mercury Prize in July 2008.^[26] Also in 2008, Plant performed with bluegrass musicians at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. He appeared as a surprise guest during Fairport Convention's set at the 2008 Cropredy Festival, performing Led Zeppelin's "The Battle of Evermore" with Kristina Donahue as a tribute to Sandy Denny.

Plant performing with Alison Krauss at the 2008 Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, TN, 2008.

On 8 February 2009, Plant and Krauss won Grammy Awards for Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Pop Collaboration with Vocals, Country Collaboration with Vocals, and Contemporary Folk/Americana Album.

In 2010, Plant realised a lifelong ambition by playing live at Molineux Stadium, home of the Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. Plant performed with the amateur cover band No Rezerve.^{[citation needed]}

With Band of Joy (2010)[link]

Plant with the Band of Joy at Birmingham Symphony Hall, 27 October 2010

In July 2010, Robert Plant embarked on a twelve-date summer tour in the United States with a new group called Band of Joy (reprising the name of his very first band in the 1960s). The group includes singer Patty Griffin, singer-guitarist Buddy Miller, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Darrell Scott, bassist-vocalist Byron House, and drummer-percussionist-vocalist Marco Giovino.

After a unique show in the United States on 12 September 2010 at the Bowery Ballroom in New York, another eleven-date autumn tour in Europe was announced to last from October to November 2010.^[27] North America tour dates were announced 16 November 2010, with the first show being 18 January 2011 in Asheville, North Carolina.^[28]