Robert Plant and Alison Krauss biography
On February 8, 2009, the album won all five awards for which it was nominated at the 51st Grammy Awards: Album of the Year; Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album; Record of the Year (for "Please Read the Letter"); Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals (for "Rich Woman"); and Best Country Collaboration with Vocals (for "Killing the Blues"). Raising Sand was the second of three country albums to win Album of the Year, after Dixie Chicks's Taking the Long Way and followed by Taylor Swift's Fearless.
The album was nominated for the 2008 Mercury Prize in the UK.
In December 2009, Rhapsody ranked the album #2 on its "Country's Best Albums of the Decade" list. The online music service also called it one of their favorite cover albums of all time.
The album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling about 112,000 copies in its first week, the highest chart position for either artists' solo work, although Plant had previously reached #1 several times with Led Zeppelin. Raising Sand was certified platinum by the RIAA on March 4, 2008. After the album's success at the 2009 Grammy Awards, the album topped the Billboard Top Rock Albums chart and Top Internet Albums chart for the first time on the week of February 28, 2009. The album also hit the top of Canadian Top Country Albums, and also peaked at #2 in Billboard Top Country Albums, being stuck behind part of 35 weeks non-consecutive chart topping Fearless by Country singer Taylor Swift.
The album entered the Top 5 on the UK Albums Chart, going on to reach #2 in January 2008.
Follow-up album
According to Ken Irwin of Rounder Records, and producer Burnett, the duo started work on a second album in 2009. In a 2010 interview, Plant indicated that the follow-up sessions were unsuccessful.
Personnel
- Robert Plant - vocals
- Alison Krauss - vocals, fiddle
Additional musicians
- Riley Baugus - banjo
- Jay Bellerose - drums
- Norman Blake - acoustic guitar
- T-Bone Burnett - acoustic and electric guitar, six-string bass guitar,
- Dennis Crouch - acoustic bass
- Greg Leisz - pedal steel guitar
- Marc Ribot - acoustic guitar, banjo, dobro, electric guitar
- Mike Seeger - autoharp
- Patrick Warren - Keyboards, pump organ, toy piano
Production
- T-Bone Burnett - production
- Gavin Lurssen - mastering engineering
- Stacy Parrish - audio engineering
- Mike Piersante - audio engineering, mixing
References
Biography from 
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