Roots

The latest releases reviewed.

ROBERT PLANT/ALISON KRAUSS Raising Sand Rounder *****

You would want to be a very flat fish indeed not to have your interest aroused by the prospect of Led Zeppelin's legendary voice swapping verses and melting harmonies with the undisputed queen of bluegrass. Did we mention that the producer is T-Bone Burnett and the players include guitarist Marc Ribot, multi-instrumentalist Norman Blake and banjo player extraordinaire Riley Baugus? Burnett has drawn together a fascinating array of material that is pitched somewhere between Plant's natural hard bluesy territory and Krauss's sweet-and-sour Appalachian melodies. This is moody, swampy, warm and hugely enjoyable - two people stretching themselves in musical ways they could hardly imagined. www.rounder.com JOE BREEN

Download tracks: Killing the Blues, Fortune Teller, The Long Journey

JOHN PRINE & MAC WISEMAN Standard Songs for Average People Oh Boy ***

John Prine has never made a secret of his distaste for the modern world and its version of country music. The 1940s, 1950s and 1960s were Prine's ideal musical decades, and he cloaks himself in their soft sentimentality, honest humanity and simple smiles at the drop of a stetson. Here he is joined by veteran bluegrass legend Mac Wiseman on 14 tracks summed up perfectly by the title. Wiseman, now in his 80s, has a surprisingly spritely voice and, combined with Prine's post throat-cancer sandpaper tenor, they make an odd but enjoyable couple on the waltzing ballad of Old Cape Cod, the classic Charlie Feathers ballad I Forgot to Remember to Forget, and Jim Reeves's tearjerker I Love You Because. It is country, country-folk, and old-fashioned country-pop, but mostly it is just unashamedly and delightfully old-fashioned. www.johnprine.net JOE BREEN

Download tracks: Don't Be Ashamed of Your Age, The Blue Side of Lonesome