The legendary Led Zeppelin frontman returned to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Wednesday evening (April 8), for something old, and something folky.
The British singer and his group Saving Grace performed Martha Scanlan’s “Higher Rock,” lifted from their self-titled debut covers album, released last September. The veteran artist and his bandmates stuck around for a bonus shot at the Zeppelin classic, “Ramble On.”
It’s the second time Plant has graced the Late Show stage in six months. Last November, he stopped by for a deep dive into The Lord of the Rings and the fantasy classic’s late author J.R.R. Tolkien. Hitting “Ramble On” was a neat tie-in. The song was originally recorded in 1969, appears on Zeppelin’s second studio album, and is said to have been inspired by LOTR.
Earlier, in a sitdown with Colbert, Plant discussed the state of English folk music. He digs it, well, most of it. It’s become “quite healthy again. There’s a contemporary element of it,” he remarks in a “Colbert Before Air” edit. The American stuff, however, “it’s a lot more bloodthirsty and there’s a lot more treachery.” Sea shanties, nope.
Colbert’s beloved late-night show is scheduled to go off the air, for good, on May 21. The talk-show master isn’t folding with the end in sight.
Plant, one of many superstar entertainers booked for the last run, is one of the best to ever do it. Zep’s career spans nine albums and 12 years, effectively ending when drummer John Bonham died in 1980. Seven of those went to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, and five are certified diamond by the RIAA, for 10 million units shifted in the United States. The blues-rockers were indicted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.
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Saving Grace was recorded between April of 2019 and January of 2025 in the Cotswolds region of England and on the Welsh Borders. Plant most recent collaborations have been with longtime creative partner Alison Krauss, with whom he went on tour last summer, and the Sensational Shapeshifters, which was active from 2012 to 2018.
Plant and Saving Grace (vocalist Suzi Dian, drummer Oli Jefferson, guitarist Tony Kelsey, banjo and string player Matt Worley, and cellist Barney Morse-Brown) will embark on a tour of Europe and the United States this summer and fall.
