Robert Plant’s opinion on Neil Young

Although Led Zeppelin is often remembered as a Hard Rock band, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page are also big fans of Folk Rock and incorporated elements of the genre into their songwriting, resulting in several amazing acoustic tracks in the band’s discography. Throughout his career, Plant has had the chance to meet some of the greatest musicians of all time and has shared his opinions on them, including Neil Young.

What is Robert Plant’s opinion on Neil Young

Robert Plant has always been a big fan of CSNY and Neil Young’s solo career, and one of his favorite songs by the Canadian songwriter is “For the Turnstiles”. He has performed the track from Neil’s album “On the Beach” (1974) more times than Young himself, playing it over 100 times. It has become a frequent addition to his setlists and has been part of his shows with Suzi Dian and Saving Grace since 2024.

Plant and Young played together multiple times over the past decades. One of the most memorable occasions was in 1995, when both Led Zeppelin and Neil Young were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That night, they performed “When the Levee Breaks” as a mashup with Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth”. Funny enough, in a 2017 interview with Howard Stern, Plant recalled that performance and said he was better than Neil on guitar that night.

He said:

“Yeah (I liked being inducted), because I could play guitar with Neil Young in the gig thing. We did, I think, ‘When The Levee Breaks’ or something. We were all playing guitar. I was better than Neil Young as a guitarist. I ran out of ideas after three minutes. But for that time it was great.”

Robert Plant also loves the song “Ohio”

Another song by Neil that he is a big fan of is “Ohio”, which was recorded by CSNY in 1970. After mentioning the track as one he would take to a desert island, he explained his choice. “This is a song that was written at the time following an event at Kent State University, Ohio where four students were shot by the authorities. So this is the song that was written which will remind us forever how it can go nastily badly wrong,” Robert Plant told BBC Radio 4 in 2022 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).

Neil wrote the song after seeing photographs of the May 4, 1970, Kent State shootings in Life magazine. Plant had already expressed his admiration for Neil a year after the song was released. In an interview featured in “Led Zeppelin Australian Tour Bootleg” (1971), he was asked which artists he was listening to. He praised the musician, revealing that he had attended one of his concerts.

Robert said:

“The only solo artist concert I’ve been to recently was the Neil Young one. I really dug that because I like a plaintive voice. Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and people like that I really dig. But I’m not going to bother whether they take half an hour to tune up or not (during their shows). Just as long as by the time they’re finished I’m full and I can say, well that’s an experience”.

Plant noted that when he saw them perform on another occasion, they weren’t particularly good musically that day. “I’ve met so many people who’ve read things in the Beat Beat who’ve said ‘Well, what a load of bulldust’. They’re just not relating what they say. I’ve been to concerts like Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and things and they haven’t been particularly fine musically.”

“(It was at the Royal Albert Hall) but the electric setting was a bit too crowded and things like that. But nevertheless, what they gave was the seed. That was the fire that people really had to have. It’s sort of like going away and going phhhh at the end of it. It’s an experience,” Robert Plant said.