Today is Robert Plant’s 67th birthday! While best known lead singer for Led Zeppelin, that wasn’t all that defined him. Two years after Led Zeppelin broke up, Plant went solo and has maintained an unbroken career ever since. Author Dave Thompson’s book, Robert Plant The Voice That Sailed the Zeppelin, shines a light on Plant’s solo career. Below is an excerpt of the book, check it out!

It is a rare talent indeed, then, that can sustain the initial impetus and spread

it over much more than four albums; a rarer one still that can keep it going

for four decades; and even Robert Plant will admit that there have been

times throughout his solo career when the roar of the crowd became more

of a murmur, and the plaudits that once popped like corks were suddenly

plopping instead.

On those occasions, it would have been the easiest thing in the world to

make a few phone calls, rehearse a few songs, reprise an old band name . . .

and once, that is precisely what he did. But when the headlines announced

back in 2012 that Robert Plant was re-forming the group he used to play

with, it was a revamped Strange Sensation that roared out of the garage,

and the slate was swept clean overnight.

Whether at the helm of Led Zeppelin, where it was generally Plant’s lyrics that set the mood of the music; alone with his own band; or drifting through the welter of side projects that have occupied him throughout the intervening years, Plant has rarely stood still for any longer than he needed to—and on the occasions he has, he just leapt a little further the next time around. But it is not the dilettante shuffling of rock’s other shapeshifting skipjacks that sustains him. A straight line drawn from Plant’s first recording will always lead to his latest, no matter how many technical, sonic, or cultural advances might separate the sessions, and no matter what caliber of musician he may choose to work with next.

To read more about Robert Plant, you can buy the book here.