His musical interests were always a bit too varied to be pinned down to just hard rock anyway. When he began his solo career in 1982 with the album Pictures At Eleven, he tried to steer things in a more atmospheric, evocative musical direction.<\/p>\n
His next two solo albums seemed to push even further away from the heaviness that exemplified so much of Zeppelin\u2019s work. There was also the brief diversion of The Honeydrippers, which featured Plant and an all-star cast (including Jimmy Page) tackling an EP of vintage rock songs.<\/p>\n
Beating the Samplers to the Punch<\/p>\n
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In 1985, an attempted Led Zeppelin reunion at Live Aid, with Phil Collins taking John Bonham\u2019s spot on drums, came off poorly. Maybe it proved that Plant was right for avoiding any Zeppelin influence on his work. But he found a way to make that influence work for him three years later.<\/p>\n
By 1988, perhaps enough time had passed that Plant felt that some kind of nod to his past with Led Zeppelin was overdue. \u201cTall Cool One\u201d, the song that made this happen, actually came about when Plant happened to tune in to the debut album by the irreverent rap pioneers Beastie Boys.<\/p>\n
On their 1986 debut album, Licensed To Ill, the trio made extensive use of samples. That was a time when such usage was available to artists without having to give credit away. There are several Zeppelin samples to be found on that record, most notably on the song \u201cRhymin & Stealin\u201d. That song makes extensive use of the classic Zep song \u201cWhen The Levee Breaks\u201d, particularly John Bonham\u2019s cavernous drum beat.<\/p>\n
A \u201cTall\u201d Task<\/p>\n
When Plant heard Beastie Boys\u2019 work, he didn\u2019t get litigious. He just thought that he might be able to do the same kind of thing, only a little better. The hard-rocking song \u201cTall Cool One\u201d, which he co-wrote with Phil Johnstone, seemed the perfect vehicle for his plan.<\/p>\n
On \u201cTall Cool One\u201d, Plant sprinkles in little snippets of all kinds of Led Zeppelin tracks. There\u2019s some \u201cBlack Dog\u201d here, a little \u201cWhole Lotta Love\u201d there. Sometimes, he pulls his own vocals from the back in the day, while he also heavily utilizes bits and pieces of Jimmy Page\u2019s guitar riffs.<\/p>\n
Speaking of Page, Plant enlisted him to play a guitar solo on \u201cTall Cool One\u201d. Allegedly, Page was taken aback when he heard what Plant was doing with the samples. Nonetheless, Page rose to the occasion with a sparkling solo that adds the cherry on top of this tasty musical sundae.<\/p>\n
Fans certainly lapped it up. \u201cTall Cool One\u201d was all over rock radio in 1988, even crossing over to hit No. 25 on the pop charts. It wasn\u2019t long before he and Page were finding different ways to revisit the Led Zeppelin catalog. This clever track helped open those doors.<\/p>\n
Photo By Larry Busacca\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you\u2019re in a highly successful band and try to move on to something different after that band…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":960218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[29],"tags":[42586,171,975,90416,4185,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-960217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1980s","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-robert-plant","tag-rock-music","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116985926313008506","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=960217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/960218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=960217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=960217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=960217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}