Robert Plant looked shocked when he walked onstage to accept the Album of the Year Grammy for Raising Sand, his duets album with Alison Krauss. He never won a single Grammy during his Led Zeppelin years, but this was his fifth of the night. "I'm bewildered," he told the crowd. "In the old days, we would have called this selling out — but it's a good way to spend a Sunday."

The duo's Grammy-night triumph capped a banner year. Their atmospheric disc of roots-rock covers, produced by T Bone Burnett, has sold 1.18 million copies since its October 2007 release. The album shot to Number Two its first week of release, and Sheri Sands of Rounder Records — which released the album — expects it to return to the Top Five. "On the night of the Grammys, we sold 5,000 albums digitally," she says.

Plant, Krauss and Burnett have already begun work on a possible sequel to Raising Sand, but they're treading slowly. "We've recorded some songs and even written some originals this time," says Burnett. "We certainly don't want to try and repeat the first record. That was a beautiful moment in time, and to do that again would detract from that. I hope we get to do two more records over the next 10 years. When you hear harmony like that in the world, you want to capture it."

[From Issue 1073 — March 5, 2009]