Dueling Papaws of Rock

I recently bought two CDs:

The one on the left is All the Road Running featuring venerable Papaw of Rock Mark Knopfler, formerly of Dire Straits, with Emmylou Harris. The right hand CD is venerable Papaw of Rock Robert Plant, formerly of a little quartet called Led Zeppelin, singing along with Alison Krauss.

The title of the Plant / Krauss collaboration is "Raising Sand," but I've gotta tell ya, slow as most of these songs are, they should have titled it "Giving Sand Three Benedryls, a Down Comforter and a Hot Water Bottle on Its Feet."

IMO, the voices blend well, but even on the best cuts, of which there are about three, I get the feeling that Plant is there doing self-involved vocal stylings while Krauss is providing all of the emotional weight - and that weight can be measured in milligrams. They seem to be singing past each other as though they never even met to make this album. And maybe they didn't.

"Fortune Teller," "Gone, Gone, Gone," and "Please Read the Letter," are my favorites. All the others are slow as cold molasses and soft as a bunny fluffed with dryer sheets. But there is little to no emotional investment on the part of the singers. They don't care - you don't care. It's music to fall into a coma by.

By contrast All the Road Running is a delight from start to finish. Emmylou Harris has a deeper emotional range than Krauss. And if pipe tobacco could sing, it would sound like Mark Knopfler. His barbed guitar is the perfect counterpoint to his smooth mellow voice. Knopfler and Harris together make you believe and relish every moment of this recording.

Guitar soundscapes remind me of Daniel Lanois and - sometimes - even The Police. The resulting sound is less traditionally country than the sounds on "Raising Sand."

So in this particular duel between Papaws of Rock, I give the title to Mark Knopfler. He comes across as more flexible, more engaged and he's certainly created a much more enjoyable aural experience, for my ears.