Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant stepped behind the Tiny Desk and lit up the room! Along with his band, Saving Grace, Plant smashed out a five-song set for NPR’s iconic concert series, turning an ordinary office into a must-see mini concert!
The band’s playlist moved from the traditional “Gospel Plough” into Moby Grape’s “It’s a Beautiful Day Today,” threading in Martha Scanlan’s “Higher Rock” and LOW’s “Everybody’s Song.” They closed with a new, earthy reimagining of Led Zep’s “Gallows Pole”, a song Plant first reshaped for Led Zeppelin III back in 1969.
Setlist
01. Gospel Plough
02. Higher Rock
03. Everybody’s Song
04. It’s a Beautiful Day Today
05. Gallows Pole
Musicians
Robert Plant – vocals, harmonica
Suzi Dian – vocals, accordion
Matt Worley – guitar, banjo, cuatro, backing vocals
Tony Kelsey – guitar
Barney Morse-Brown – cello
Oli Jefferson – drums
Saving Grace’s debut album arrived on September 26 via Nonesuch Records. The project was born during lockdown in “The Shire”, when Plant’s usual wanderings were grounded. After recent travels through Nashville with Alison Krauss on Raise the Roof, Plant found a new spark back home, connecting with a circle of musicians who shared his love of deep-rooted, evocative songcraft.
For six years, the group built its sound from the ground up, a roaming blend of styles and personalities that Plant describes as joyful, loose, and refreshingly un-serious. “We laugh a lot,” he says. “I’m not jaded. These are sweet people playing out parts of themselves they never could before.”
Saving Grace continues Plant’s creative resurgence on Nonesuch, following Lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar (2014) and Carry Fire (2017). Produced by Plant and the band, and recorded between 2019 and 2025 across the Cotswolds, Welsh Borders, and even outdoors, the album reinvents century-old songs by artists like Memphis Minnie, Blind Willie Johnson, Moby Grape’s Bob Mosley, The Low Anthem, Martha Scanlan, Sarah Siskind, and LOW’s Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk.
Plant told Rolling Stone the recording process started with a single microphone in a field, capturing performances with birdsong drifting through the final tracks, a nod to the open-air experimentation he loved during Physical Graffiti.
From a Gloucestershire barn once tied to Traffic’s early days to a brief stop at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios, the sessions stayed raw, pastoral, and unhurried. No deadlines. No pressure. Just music taking shape in its own time.
Now, after extensive European touring, Robert Plant and Saving Grace bring this intimate, roots-deep chapter to the U.S. for the first time this fall.
Tiny Desk has done A LOT of really cool things over the years, but this has got to top ’em all! Well done!!
