Monday, September 24, 1984

Robert Plant helms the Honeydrippers on a retro-rock covers EP

Volume 1

The Honeydrippers

Released: September 24, 1984

Charted: October 20, 1984

Peak: 5 US, 56 UK, 1¹ CN, 13 AU

Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, world: 1.3 (includes U.S.)

Genre: rock

Tracks:

Song Title (Writers) (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts.

I Get a Thrill (Ruby Toombs)
Sea of Love George Khoury, Phil Phillips) (10/13/84, 3 US, 3 CB, 4 RR, 1 AC, 11 AR, 56 UK, 1 CN, 5 AU)
I Got a Woman (Ray Charles, Renald Richard)
Young Boy Blues (Doc Pomus, Phil Spector)
Rockin’ at Midnight (Roy Brown) (10/13/84, 25 US, 28 CB, 23 RR, 38 AC, 8 AR, 18 CN)

Total Running Time: 18:07

The Players:

Robert Plant (vocals)
Jimmy Page (guitar)
Jeff Beck (guitar)
Paul Shaffer (keyboards)
Nile Rodgers (guitar, co-producer)
Wayne Pedzwater (bass)
Dave Wecki, Keith “Bev” Smith (drums)

Rating:

2.929 out of 5.00 (average of 13 ratings)

About the Album:

Supergroups don’t get much bigger than this. Led Zeppelin fans were overjoyed to see Robert Plant and Jimmy Page reunite. In addition, Jeff Beck – who Page replaced in the Yardbirds – showed up as well to get classic rock guitar fans swooning. Nile Rodgers, formerly of Chic, leant his production talents as well. While initially associated with Chic and Sister Sledge and other disco acts, he had started branching out to other pop and rock acts like David Bowie, Duran Duran, and Madonna.

This EP of R&B covers came about at the request of Atlantic Records’ boss Ahmet Ertegun. With a couple of solo albums in the classic rock vein and his “monolithic Zeppelin” ^AMG only a few years behind him, this project surprised some of Plant’s fans. However, he’d “always harbored deep, abiding love for early rock & roll” ^AMG so this “unabashedly retro-rock project” ^AMG shouldn’t actually be that startling.

“Plant excelled on Rockin’ at Midnight but landed an accidental US hit when DJs began playing the band’s version of the 1959 smoochie Sea of Love.” ^Q The latter has “a certain sense of pastishe…in how…[it] is drenched in oceans of strings…but that’s part of the charm of the record.” ^AMG Some might find it “even campy, but there’s a genuine warth in Plant’s performance...and his…Honeydrippers…have a great time running through these handful of oldies.” ^AMG Plant has said it “is his personal favorite project that he ever recorded.” ^WK

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