Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers - Volume Two - Non-Album Tracks (1990-2007)

In terms of officially recorded output, the Honeydrippers barely exist. The band put out one EP of five songs in 1984 called "Volume One," and there's never been a "Volume Two." Until now, that is. Because, in practice, "the Honeydrippers" is the name Robert Plant has used whenever he's been in the mood to sing covers of the songs he loved when he was a kid. I take that to mean songs from the era before the mid-1960s when the Beatles and others drastically changed music.

A few months ago, I posted my version of "Volume One." I took the original 18 minutes of the EP and expanded it to 45 minutes by adding other songs Plant did from 1984 to 1986 that fit the criterion I mentioned above. There happened to be a lot, because Plant was in the mood for that early style of music at times, even while he was having a very successful career as a star of "modern rock" music.

Here's a link to that, by the way:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/01/robert-plant-honeydrippers-volume-one.html

I'm daring to make a "Volume Two" here, even though the "Honeydrippers" as such pretty much didn't exist for the time in question. (Plant did use that name for a concert of nothing but rootsy covers in 2007, but I'm not including anything from that because the whole concert is something I'd like to post here at a later date.) What I've done is collected Plant's covers of pre-mid-1960s songs that didn't make it to any of his studio albums. Luckily for my collection, it turns out he's often participated in tribute albums to the musical heroes of his youth, so I've used a lot of those performances. He's also done the occasional cover in concert that fits the bill. But in the case of bootlegs, I've only used performances that are from excellent soundboards where all the audience noise can be edited out. Happily, there are a few of those too.

The original Honeydrippers EP was basically Plant's baby, but it also featured guitar solos from his former Led Zeppelin bandmate Jimmy Page as well as Jeff Beck. Happily, I've been able to duplicate that somewhat, because three of the songs feature Page and another song features Beck. Other guitar heroes make appearances, such as Brian May (on Plant's performance with Queen) and Eric Clapton.

Note that the musical variety here ranges from rockabilly to blues to soul to ballads, such all those types of music were popular in the 1950s or thereabouts. Be warned that the first song starts out as kind of a fake out, with about 30 minutes of traditional country music before it drastically switches gears.

It would be nice if I could make a "Volume Three" eventually, but I doubt that's going to happen. Plant doesn't seem to play in a rockabilly style music anymore, since his musical styles naturally evolve and mellow as he gets older. Plus, he's been putting more of his cover versions on his studio albums, and doesn't seem to be taking part in as many tribute albums. But who knows, maybe as time goes on more music of this type from him will emerge. If you know of good songs for me to include, please let me know.

Five of the 13 songs are officially unreleased, but since I used pristine soundboard bootlegs for those (as mentioned above), I doubt you'll be able to tell which ones those are from listening. The album totals 47 minutes, which makes for a nice album length.

01 Let's Have a Party (Robert Plant)
02 Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Robert Plant & Queen)
03 Louie, Louie (Robert Plant)
04 If It's Really Got to Be This Way (Robert Plant)
05 Gonna Shoot You Right Down [Boom Boom] (Robert Plant & Jimmy Rogers with Jimmy Page & Eric Clapton)
06 Think (Robert Plant)
07 A Wondrous Place (Robert Plant)
08 As Long as I Have You (Robert Plant)
09 Baby Let's Play House (Jimmy Page & Robert Plant)
10 My Bucket's Got a Hole in It (Jimmy Page & Robert Plant)
11 Let the Boogie Woogie Roll (Robert Plant with Jools Holland)
12 Look Out Mabel (Robert Plant with Jeff Beck & the Big Town Playboys)
13 Valley of Tears (Robert Plant & the Soweto Gospel Choir)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4aYNsFKB

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/wJMboz3tSmAR6H2/file

At first, I didn't have a clue what kind of photo I should use for the album cover, since the "Honeydrippers" didn't actually exist during this time period. But I looked through a bunch of photos of Plant from the 1990s, and I came across one of him holding up a vintage style guitar. It works for me. This photo is from 1995. I also used the text from the cover of the 1984 Honeydrippers EP, except of course I changed "Volume One" to "Volume Two."

Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers - Volume One - Extended Version (1984-1986)

In my last post, I said I would post more from Robert Plant and the Honeydrippers soon. Here were are, already! :)

As I said with that last post, I was inspired by a recent post at the "Albums Back from the Dead" blog to come up with more Honeydrippers music. The Honeydrippers only released one EP in 1984 called "Volume One" that had just five songs on it, for a total of 19 minutes. The "Albums Back from the Dead" took the approach of looking later in Robert Plant's career for more similar music to create a "Volume Two." I tried a different approach of sticking close to the time the EP came out, 1984 to 1986, to see if I could find more music done in a similar style.

I also commented on my last post that one needs to think of the Honeydrippers as Robert Plant and a bunch of other musicians playing rockabilly and other 1950's-styled music. That's because the big name musicians on the EP like Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck rarely played this type of music with Plant again.

(The Honeydrippers did play on Saturday Night Live shortly after the EP came out, but even then, the big name guitarist was Brian Setzer of the Stray Cats instead of Page or Beck. I've included one of the songs from that performance here, "Santa Claus Is Back in Town." The other song played was one of the songs from the EP that wasn't so different from the EP version, so I didn't include it.)

It turns out that Plant really loves this sort of music, and his history with the Honeydrippers name goes well beyond the EP, from 1981 to the 2000s. If you're interested in the whole story, I suggest reading this newspaper article about it:

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/robert-plant-birthday-70-led-zeppelin-the-honeydrippers-a8499176.html

The rest of the songs here come from a grab bag of sources, two officially released and the rest from bootlegs. However, I was careful to only use bootlegs that are of the highest sound and performance quality. I got lucky in that there is a soundboard recording of Plant doing some rehearsals for a Honeydrippers segment of his 1985 concert tour. I selected all the songs that weren't on the EP. Additionally, Plant did a handful of concerts in 1986 playing this type of music in small clubs, but unfortunately I could only find two songs done live at that time in sufficiently high enough quality to be included here.

I hope you'll agree that the end result is 46 minutes of music just as good as the EP, instead of the mere 19 minutes of the EP. (A much later rerelease of the EP did add a bonus track, but it's just a live version of one of the songs from the EP, so I didn't include it because it isn't that different.)

I'm still far from done with Plant and the Honeydrippers, but that's enough for now.

Note that on September 27, 2019, I finally posted a "Volume Two." You can find a link to that here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/09/robert-plant-honeydrippers-volume-two.html

01 I Get a Thrill (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
02 Sea of Love (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
03 I Got a Woman (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
04 Young Boy Blues (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
05 Rockin' at Midnight (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
06 Santa Claus Is Back in Town (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
07 Philadelphia Baby (Robert Plant)
08 Git It (Robert Plant)
09 [Everytime I Hear] That Mellow Saxophone (Robert Plant)
10 Honey Hush (Robert Plant)
11 She Walks Right In (Robert Plant)
12 Come On (Robert Plant)
13 Mess O' Blues (Robert Plant & Fairport Convention)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16697037/ROBRTPLNT1984-1986_HonydripprsVolumOneAltrnte_atse.zip.html

I made the cover from a photo of Robert Plant and Brian Setzer (with guitar) playing as the Honeydrippers in the Saturday Night Live show in 1984.

Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers - Rolls Hall, Monmouth, Britain, 1-18-1985

This post was inspired by a post at the "Albums Back from the Dead" blog a few days ago. That blog posted a "Volume Two" to the frustratingly short "Volume One" 1984 EP by Robert Plant and the Honeydrippers, by scraping up more songs done by Plant in the same style over the years. I thought, "What a great idea!" and decided to take an even deeper dive into doing the same.

It turns out the Honeydrippers never did anything else, if you consider the group to be Plant, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, and Nile Rodgers, as it was on the EP. But if you consider the group to be Plant plus a rotating bunch of other people doing the same style of rockabilly and other fifties-styled music, then it turns out there's a bunch more. Some of it has used the Honeydrippers name and some hasn't, but that's mostly a technicality, since the type of music played is the main thing.

I was most surprised to discover there was exactly one concert done by the Honeydrippers in the months just after the EP came out. They used the name "the Skinnydippers" instead (probably to keep a low profile), and it was a different bunch of musicians, but what matters is the vocalist was Plant, and they covered the exact same sort of music. Their sole show was a benefit concert at a small club in the obscure town of Monmouth in Wales. (There's a video of the entire concert on YouTube - trying searching for Plant's name plus "secret gig." And by the way, whoever posted that is wrong in that the Butterfield Blues Band has nothing to do with the concert.)

I was surprised at how hard it was to find a recording of this concert, because when I did find it, I discovered that it's really good! For starters, the sound quality is excellent. It clearly is a soundboard, to the point that the audience can barely be heard between songs. The performance is excellent too, especially considering this particular band would never play before or after this. But the main attraction is the song list. Plant sings lots of songs that he's never sang in public at any other time. (The only song that doesn't fit the theme is a cover of an obscure Moby Grape song.)

There's only two minor snags with the recording. The first is the end of the song "Going Down" got abruptly cut off before the song ends. But the vast majority of the song is there. I faded the song out a short time before the cut off to make the ending less jarring. The second has to do with the performance of "Georgia on My Mind." The band started the song and made it through about two minutes before breaking down and stopping. Then the band tried again and nailed it the second time. I simply deleted the failed first attempt. Oh, and I also removed some dead air time between songs to make for a better listening experience. I kept the dialogue though, and put the longer bits on separate tracks.

By the way, there are exactly zero songs performed here that are also on the EP, even though it came out a few months earlier. I presume that's because he did most of those EP songs at lots of concerts, including all of his 1985 tour, and this concert was him having fun doing something completely different.

I plan on making more posts involving the Honeydrippers, because Plant obviously loves this kind of music and it shows that he has great fun when he sings it. Frankly, I enjoy him doing this sort of thing more than a lot of his "serious" solo career. But this is a good way to get started.

01 Move It (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
02 talk (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
03 Jailhouse Rock (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
04 talk (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
05 Going Down (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
06 Every Little Bit Hurts (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
07 Crosscut Saw (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
08 talk (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
09 All Your Love [I Miss Loving] (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
10 I Need Your Loving Everyday (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
11 True Love (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
12 talk (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
13 Georgia on My Mind (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
14 talk (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
15 Mystery Train (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
16 talk (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
17 Born Under a Bad Sign (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
18 talk (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
19 Roll, Roll, Roll (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
20 talk (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
21 The Young Ones (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
22 talk (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
23 Save the Last Dance for Me (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
24 talk (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
25 Can't Be So Bad (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
26 Great Balls of Fire (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
27 talk (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)
28 Little Sister (Robert Plant & the Honeydrippers)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HNXU57ZG

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ojG1VhJ6TTAbr8I/file

To make the cover, I considered using a still from the video of the actual Rolls Hall show, but the quality was way too low to look good. So I've used a photo of Plant at a concert in Houston in 1985 instead.