Robert Plant: Sixty Six to Timbuktu

Reviewed by GRAHAM REID

Herald rating: * * *

Fans-only territory, one suspects. This double disc mops up material from the former Led Zeppelin frontman's solo career and dips back to his pre-Zepp days for Band of Joy and other tracks.

It has the feel of various mismatched period pieces (The 80s! The 60s!) and veers from yelping balladry to guitar rock (his 67 version of Hey Joe allows guitarist Kevin Gammond to go the whole Hendrix).

Some fine stuff scattered around — his lovely simple version of Arthur Alexander's If It's Really Got to Be This Way is a standout — but at 35 tracks which range from early 60s horn-driven r'n'b to North African music with the Afro Celt Sound System and some rural blues recorded in Timbuktu (the latter two bookending some boogie woogie with Jools Holland), it's a head-swivelling trip which is testament to his broad musical interests but can sound like a radio set on random play.

And he really likes that word "baaay-beee".

(Mercury)