Robert Plant to Receive Americana Lifetime Achievement Award
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- Robert Plant will receive the Americana Music Association's Lifetime Achievement Award at a Sept. 16 ceremony in Nashville, joining past recipients that include Buddy Guy, Elvis Costello, Patty Griffin, Don Henley, Los Lobos, and Bonnie Raitt.
- Plant first crossed into Americana in 2008, winning Album of the Year and Duo of the Year with Alison Krauss and T Bone Burnett for "Raising Sand," then repeating the Album of the Year honor in 2011 with "Band of Joy."
- Plant is currently on tour behind last year's "Saving Grace," a record made with English singer Suzi Dian and drummer Oli Jefferson, who have been joining him on the road.
- In a Rolling Stone interview, Plant said Dian's "plaintive style and the freshness and enthusiasm of her approach" drew him to collaborate after years of vocal partnerships with Krauss and Griffin.
- The Saving Grace tour played Nashville's Ryman Auditorium in March and resumes Sept. 18 in Missouri — two days after Plant returns to the Ryman for the Americana Honors ceremony.
- This year's Album of the Year contenders at the Americana Honors include Tyler Childers' "Snipe Hunter," Kathleen Edwards' "Billionaire," S.G. Goodman's "Planting by the Signs," Ken Pomeroy's "Cruel Joke," and Margo Price's "Hard Headed Woman."
Why it matters: The award formalizes Plant's standing in Americana rather than as a rock star dabbling in the genre, placing him alongside established roots-music figures like Bonnie Raitt and Los Lobos. It also coincides with a genuinely new creative chapter — the Saving Grace project with Suzi Dian — showing Plant continuing to reinvent his voice rather than tour on Zeppelin nostalgia, with the Ryman crowd getting the bookend of his March tour stop and September ceremony in a single year.
