I don't buy a lot of CDs, primarily because I just don't have (take?) the time to enjoy them the way I used to but I finally broke down and bought Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. It's a T Bone Burnett production so it's pretty ... well, weird. It's a duet album and their two voices mesh so nicely, it's almost spooky, but how weird to bring together the lead singer from Led Zeppelin and THE bluegrass warbler of our time? If pressed, I'd have to call it roots music (or roots revival if you're looking for a Wikipedia entry). Composers range from The Everly Brothers (for what's probably the most popular cut on the disc: Gone, Gone, Gone), to Gene Clark (The Byrds fame), Tom Waits, Sam Phillips (no, not the record producer who discovered Elvis but the woman who wrote Taking Picture which was on the last episode of The Gilmore Girls) and Rowland Salley, better known as the bass player for Chris Isaak. And that's why the title of this post is Killing The Blues, because, right now, it's my favorite cut from the recording. Once I had a chance to read up on the music on the CD, I listened to Rowland's own recording of that song. They're very different from each other and I think the contrast is a really good indicator of T Bone's production values and perspectives. This Youtube video is a good introduction to the collaboration.