Sadnews: led zeppelin singer Robert Plant pass away at 76 year due to…

SANTA FE, N.M. (KRQE) – The stairway to heaven apparently has a stop in the Land of Enchantment because a rock icon visited New Mexico to attend one of the state’s signature events. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham shared a photo she took with Robert Plant, the lead singer for Led Zeppelin.

He was in New Mexico last week for a performance at the Santa Fe Opera but stuck around for the 100th burning of Old Man Gloom. In her post, the governor said, “Even rock legends didn’t want to miss the Zozobra centennial celebration.”

In mythology, the phoenix is a symbol of strength, reincarnation and second chances. When everything is burnt down and destroyed, seemingly overruled by darkness or hardship, the bird rises from the ashes. For Robert Plant, one of Led Zeppelin’s albums holds the same power in his eyes, symbolising a rebirth in a moment of difficulty.

In August 1975, Robert Plant was enjoying a well-deserved holiday. His band was one of the biggest acts in the world and a vital force in the rock and roll era. They’d influenced their peers and new acts alike, serving as a kind of gold standard troupe that bands have looked to ever since for influence. With six albums already under their belt, the group was taking a break before starting on the next, and Plant had headed to Greece for a getaway.

But then as he drove his rental car around Rhodes, the vehicle spun off the road and crashed, leaving Plant and his wife Maureen injured and their kids bruised up. But that’s something to be grateful for, even thought the accident brought any touring plants crumbling down, the musician as alive, granted another chance in life.

However, even though it’s easy to say that with hindsight, experiences like this are difficult to deal with in the moment. Plant was a rocker. He wanted to be on stage or out on the road touring his music and hitting a different city each night to entertain his fans. It was a big readjustment when this suddenly couldn’t happen, and the group had to reconsider their relationship with their music for a different and more isolated context. But as everything around them seemed ashed, the band rose to the occasion with a new record in their fiery beak.

In the Autumn of 1975, the band were supposed to be touring America to promote their latest record, Physical Graffiti. But with that off the table, the band booked studio time instead. It was a way of regaining focus or a sense of control, giving Plant something to stay busy with rather than replaying the accident over in his head or mourning what could have been with the lost months on the road.

With the singer still injured, the studio sessions looked very different. Guitarist Jimmy Page stepped up for his friend, putting in long shifts at the studio recording and mixing the album as inspiration struck Plant. The two musicians got to work, zoning in on the project as something to pour their efforts into, turning it around in only a few weeks as they focussed in a way they never had before. Without the distraction of tours or shows, and with Plant’s injuries keeping in stuck in a wheelchair, there was nothing to do but get their heads down, write songs and record them. They couldn’t even be distracted by playing rock stars in the studio as the album had to work around the singer’s limitations, stripping the sound back to something simpler and more suited to their situation.

In the end, they called the album Presence because that’s all they were left with. Within the context of Plant’s injuries, the scare the accident had given the friends and the way they came together and created the record in a concentrated manner, it was a moment in time when they all felt present with one another and their music.

But for Plant especially, the album was something special. “When you sit in a wheelchair and sing the whole album, the very fact that you’ve sung it is fantastic,” he said, with the album representing strength to him and gratitude for being alive and able to keep doing what he loved. But for all the members, Presence was their phoenix album as they rose from the ashes of difficulty. Plant said, “We got it together in such a short space of time under such odds, not knowing what the outcome was going to be—not of the album but of the future of the band.”