From our row: The best singers of all time – Elvis Presley
By Robert Plant
Robert plans about Elvis Presley: “This seductive, merciless voice”
There is a difference between those who only sing and those who go to another, one -side place with their voice that create an euphoria. You turn. I experienced it myself. And I know that Elvis could do that too.
My first Elvis song was “Hound Dog”. At that time I didn’t know anything about Big Mama Thornton or where the whole swing came from. I only heard this voice that had its own place. The voice was confident, seductive, merciless. She slid up and down, plunged on grades like a bird of prey on the prey.
Robert plans about Elvis Presley: “This seductive, merciless voice”
I recorded it all, you can hear it at LED Zeppelin at all corners and ends. When I hit Elvis after one of our concerts in the early 1970s, I took a close look at him. It was not as big as I was, but had a decent chest – important as a resonance body. And he was an obsessed one. “Anyway You Want Me” is the most moving that I have ever heard from the mouth of a singer.
“Jailhouse Rock” and the songs that came out in the King-Creole sessions-incomparable. When I listen to the sun pictures today and look back on his career, I think: “Wow, what a beginning.” But most of all I liked the modern RCA things. “I need your love tonight” and “A Big Hunk O ‘Love” had so much power – these sessions sound as if you couldn’t have been in any better place on earth at the time.
At our meeting at the time, Jimmy Page joked that we would never do sound checks, but if it did, we would only sing Elvis songs. Elvis found it funny and asked what songs that were. The particularly atmospheric, I said, like this great country piece, “Love Me”: “Treat me like a fool/treat me mean and cruel/but love me.”
When we said goodbye, after very amusing 90 minutes, and I went down the hallway, he came out of the door, grinned and started singing: “Treat me like a fool …” I turned around, and then we stood in There and sang each other. His environment prevented him from collecting with more modern songwriters. When he died, he was 42. I am now 18 years older, but he was missing new partners at the time, fresh relationships – his old buddies could not teach him anything new. I know that he wanted to show more of himself.
But – as a singer – he made it possible to come to this place.