9 songs Robert Plant said were his personal favorites in the 90s

Although Robert Plant is best known as one of the most powerful voices in Hard Rock, having been the frontman of Led Zeppelin, the musician has always had a broad musical taste. He was especially influenced by Blues artists but also paid close attention to new bands, often listening to what was being played on college radio stations.

In 1990, ten years after Led Zeppelin came to an end, Plant spoke with Q magazine and shared some of his favorite songs from his record collection. Rock and Roll Garage explained who some of the lesser-known musicians on the list were and highlighted what Plant said about them over the decades.

9 songs Robert Plant said were his personal favorites in the 90s

“The Phantom” Jerry Lott – “Love Me” (1960)

The first one is “Love Me” by Jerry Lott, also known as “The Phantom”, which was released in 1958. “Because he was on Dot (Record company), he was presumed to be pat Boone’s brother, but because he wore a mask like ‘The Lone Ranger’ nobody could tell. It’s a perfect piece of recording – you can’t understand a word and you don’t care!” Robert Plant said.

One of the less famous artists on this list, Jerry Lottis was born in Prichard, Alabama but grew up in Leakesville, Mississippi. He first played Country music but when Elvis Presley appeared he was mesmerized by his music and performances, so he decided to play that kind of music. But Lott’s “Love Me” is not the same “Love Me” recorded by Elvis Presley in 1956.

His career was tragically cut short in 1966 when a car accident left him paralyzed. He passed away in 1983 at the age of 45.

Faith No More “Introduce Yourself” (1987)

The second is actually an entire album: Faith No More‘s second record “Introduce Yourself”, the second and final one with vocalist Chuck Mosley. Plant said it was the vocal attitude, the hard/heavy garage-rap style that he liked about the album.

He has been a fan of the band since their first record and even took them on the road as his opening act in 1990. By that time the band had already released three studio albums. “We Care a Lot” (1985), both with Chuck Mosley on vocals and “Introduce Yourself” (1987), the first one with Mike Patton.

One of the band’s founding members, the keyboardist Roddy Bottom, recalled a funny story about that tour in an interview with Butt Magazine in 2015. He said that the Led Zeppelin vocalist was very supportive and sweet to them. One day they even ended up taking Plant to a LGBTQ+ bar.

Tom Verlaine “Five Miles of You” (1984)

Another song from the ’80s that Plant praised is Tom Verlaine’s ‘Five Miles of You,’ which he called “a real favorite”. The track was part of the musician’s fourth studio album released in 1984. All the songs of that record were composed by Verlaine who was also the Television vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist.

But this one mentioned by Plant, the musician co-wrote with Jimmy Ripp. Later on he became Television’s guitarist from 2007 to 2023 (Year Verlaine died).

In the late 80s, Plant complained to Creem magazine that artists like Verlaine were making very important music but people were not listening to it because the radio stations only played “guaranteed hits”.

“I want to cut through radio with a hot knife. This idea where they say, ‘We’re only gonna play stuff guaranteed on being a big hit.’ I wanna stretch it out some. People like Tom Verlaine and Hüsker Dü are making quite important music right now. (But) people aren’t hearing it because it never gets played,” Robert Plant said.

Ray Charles “What’d I Say” (1959)

Ray Charles has always been a huge inspiration for Plant and the musician even thanked him. In an interview in 1994, they told the musician that people like James Brown and Robert Plant said he was an influence to them.

Charles’ answer was: “Oh, that’s nice. Well, that’s very kind of these wonderful people to say such a thing and I really do, really do appreciate that a lot and you know, I’ve been around quite a long time and it’s good to know that somebody’s paying me some attention (laughs)”.

The song “Wha’d I Say” was started to be composed by Ray Charles in one evening when alongside his orchestra and backup singers he was playing their entire setlist at a show. Since they still had time left, they decided to improvise, they suddenly were playing the song and the crowd loved it. It was then recorded and released in 1959, becoming not only one of Charles’ most famous songs, but one of the most praised of all time.

The Incredible String Band “Swift As The Wind” (1968)

Another band that Robert Plant praised and might be obscure for many Rock and Roll fans is The Incredible String Band. They were formed in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1966 and were together until 1974. Decades later the group reunited again from 1999 to 2006.

The track “Swift As The Wind” was part of their third album “The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter”, which was quite successful in England. It peaked at number 5 on the United Kingdom charts at the time. The Led Zeppelin vocalist had the chance to see the group playing live back then and talked about that experience in an interview with Santa Barbara Independant in 2013.

“You know, we spent a lot of time with American music as our inspiration, but we kept returning to that more abstract root that made us absurdly Brittanical. I saw the String Band as real dream weavers, and layered into all of this is a sense of peace, soliloquies of pure charm, riddlings, and joy. In some ways I think musicians have a great responsibility to promote all those things. It should be some sort of code for us.”

“And yet then there’s the world around us that’s not really like that. You have Tony Blair resigning from the government when actually he should’ve been answering to the high courts for war crimes at The Hague. Instead he becomes a Catholic, and he’s made the ambassador to the Middle East. You think what a fucking mess all of this is. And that dancing around with the String Band, no matter how alluring it is, well, we were just wet behind the ears is all,” Robert Plant said.

Howlin’ Wolf “Going Down Slow” (1961)

Robert Plant said that he liked this Howlin’ Wolf song especially because of the guitar outro by Hubert Sumlin. The Led Zeppelin vocalist said that he told his solo guitarist (at the time) Doug Boyle, to listen to the “finer tremolo” on the track.

“Howlin’ Wolf to me he is like the center of all of it. He’s magnificent, strong, powerful and his lyrics, I think came a lot from Willie Dixon, make his songs absolutely otherworldly,” Plant told BBC Radio 4 in 2022

That song was originally composed by American Blues singer St. Louis Jimmy Oden, being considered a Blues Standard. Since then the track has been recorded by many artists, including Wolf in 1961. Besides him and Hubert Sumlin, were also part of the song Henry Gray (piano), Jimmy Rogers (guitars), Willie Dixon (bass) and Sam Lay (drums). The spoken narrative was recorded by Willie Dixon.

This Mortal Coil “Song to The Siren”

“Song to the Siren” was originally written by Tim Buckley (Jeff Buckley’s father) and Larry Buckley. Buckley released the song on his 1970 album “Starsailor” and the track was later on covered by many artists. One of them was This Mortal Coil, a British music collective led by Ivo Watts-Russell, who was the founder of the 4AD record label.

“(…) With Tim Buckley’s work, This Mortal Coil had come along out of the Cocteau Twins on the 4AD record label. They took one of his songs, “Song to the Siren”. It was just such an evocative recording,” Robert Plant told Rolling Stone in 2020.

Although Russel and John Fryer were the only official members of the band, they would have a big rotating cast of artists working with them. During their existence, the music collective had recorded with members of Cocteau Twins, The Pixies and Dead Can Dance.

Robert Johnson “Traveling Riverside Blues” (1937)

The godfather of Blues music, Robert Johnson, certainly would be part of this list. In the interview with Q magazine, Plant recalled that once when he was on tour in Memphis he rented a car and drove down to Mississippi, state where Johnson was born, to Fryer Point (place the song mentions). “Very strange place, very African, very other-wordly. Sleepy, woodsmoke fires, big trees all around, burnt-out motels, deserted gas stations…” the musicians said.

Led Zeppelin recorded their own version of the song in 1969. But the track was only released in 1990 on “Led Zeppelin Boxed Set”.

Robert Johnson performed in the studio only twice during his career. The first one was in 1936 in San Antonio and the second in Dallas back in 1937, where he recorded the song covered by Zeppelin. In those sessions he recorded 29 songs (with 13 surviving alternate takes) that changed the history of the Blues.

He sadly passed away in 1938 at the age of 27, being the first “member” of the infamous 27 club. The same thing happened to names like Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison.

The Cure “Lullaby” (1989)

A band that many fans might expect Robert Plant to like is The Cure, and indeed, he mentioned the track “Lullaby” as one of his favorites. The song was released by the band, led by Robert Smith, on their eighth studio album Disintegration (1989).

“I love Robert Smith’s beckoning you into his vulnerability. It’s an interesting little world, like H.G. Wells’s History Of Mr Polly,” he told Q magazine at the time.

Curiously, this track was more successful in Europe than in the United States. It peaked at number 5 on the United Kingdom charts and 74 on the US Billboard Hot 100. It also performed well in Italy, West Germany, Ireland, Austria and Spain.

Besides Smith, were also part of that song Simon Gallup (Bass), Porl Thompson (Guitar), Boris Willimas (Percussion) and keyboardist Roger O’Donnell.

Elvis Presley “A Big Hunk O’Love” (1959)

Elvis Presley was one of Robert Plant’s biggest inspirations when growing up and he is a huge fan of the King’s catalogue “A Big Hunk O’ Love” (is from) just before he went in the army in 1958 (When he recorded). Fantastic song,” Plant told Charlie Rose in 2005.

Written byAaron Schroeder and Sidney Wyche, under the name Sid Jaxon, and was first released by Elvis in 1959. The Led Zeppelin frontman had the chance to meet Elvis back in the 70s after a show.

Curiously, Elvis’ late daughter Lisa Marie Presley once asked him to autograph her arm. She wanted to get a tattoo with his name but he refused to do that. “No, he didn’t ask for an autograph (Elvis). What happened was that I met his daughter several times. On one occasion, she wanted an autograph on her arm and then get a tattoo.”

“So I thought, “My God!” The ironic thing is that Lisa Marie is now a renowned artist. Would look pretty ridiculous if she had a Robert Plant tattoo on her arm. So no, I didn’t do the autograph on her arm,” Robert Plant told the Brazilian magazine Veja in 2020.

She sadly passed away three years later, in 2023, at the age of 54.