Robert Plant to release 'Nine Lives' box set with unreleased material

This news originally appeared in an edition of the newsletter "On This Day In Led Zeppelin History."

Nine Lives, a box set combining nine of Robert Plant's post-Zeppelin albums with perfectly tailored bonus tracks, is set to be released later this month on the Rhino Records label. His eight solo albums and the Honeydrippers' EP Volume One have all been remastered for Nine Lives, each matched with at least one bonus track from the era, consisting of unreleased songs, rarities, live cuts, and remixes. The box set also includes a DVD with 20 music videos from Plant, plus interviews with him and several friends and musicians.

The first official DVD of Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation was released last month by Rounder Records. It includes their appearance on the PBS television show Soundtage, recorded in September 2005. There are two versions of this DVD available; one is being sold on the PBS Web site, and the other, sold in stores, includes a cover of Bob Dylan's "Girl from the North Country" that is not available on the PBS version.

Plant has reportedly been busy inside studios on both sides of the Atlantic recently. For one thing, he is said to have recorded a load of new material with the Strange Sensation in England. For another, he was in Nashville, Tenn., recording late last month with Alison Krauss. I happened to be in town on Oct. 29 to read a report about Plant by celebrity columnist Beverly Keel in that day's edition of The Tennessean. "He's been recording a duets project with Alison Krauss that's bring produced by T-Bone Burnett," she writes. "Take a moment and imagine how amazing our bluegrass angel is going to sound with rock's golden god."