The Honeydrippers - Volume One
Written by: Moti Kupfer
Release Date - September 24, 1984
On September 24, 1984, "The Honeydrippers" released the EP "Volume One". Behind Robert Plant’s surprising return to the rhythm and blues of his youth lay a story of loss, friendship, and the search for a new voice after "Led Zeppelin".
On September 25, 1980, "Led Zeppelin" drummer John Bonham died. Nothing was the same afterward. Just over two months later, the band announced its breakup. One of the greatest rock bands of the seventies had said goodbye, and this time it meant it.
Each member faced a different path. John Paul Jones returned to work as an in-demand session player and arranger, later collaborating with Paul McCartney, "R.E.M.", Ben E. King, "Heart", "The Mission", Lenny Kravitz, and others. Jimmy Page stepped away from the guitar for a while as he struggled with Bonham’s death and his heroin addiction. Robert Plant would later help his old friend find his way back to playing.
Plant had been as close to Bonham as a brother. At first he considered leaving music altogether and becoming a teacher in the anthroposophical tradition. Eventually he abandoned the idea and, encouraged by Phil Collins, returned to music. This time, he had no intention of recreating "Led Zeppelin".
Plant had started out as a blues singer around Birmingham. In 1981, he joined the rhythm and blues outfit "The Honeydrippers", initially a band playing mostly covers, alongside guitarist Andy Sylvester, formerly of "Chicken Shack". The group’s name has been linked to Joe Liggins and "Joe Liggins & His Honeydrippers", active in the forties and fifties. Another possible inspiration was American blues singer Roosevelt Sykes, known as "The Honeydripper".
For its first couple of years, it was mainly a live band. The project might never have reached the studio without an idea from "Atlantic Records" president Ahmet Ertegun: record some of his favorite songs from the fifties. He approached Plant, who assembled an extraordinary group of musicians: Jeff Beck, Nile Rodgers, Brian Setzer of "Stray Cats", Paul Shaffer, and, of course, Jimmy Page.
The result was "Volume One", a short EP that gave these musicians room to enjoy the rhythm and blues and rock and roll they had grown up with. Beck and Page, both former members of "The Yardbirds", came together again around Plant’s voice. Page plays on "Sea of Love", while Beck brings his energy to "Rockin’ at Midnight".
"The Honeydrippers" found their biggest audience with their version of "Sea of Love". The song was written and first recorded by John Phillip Baptiste, who performed under the name Phil Phillips. He wrote it for a girl he loved, using the vastness of the sea to express the depth of his feelings.
Baptiste worked at a hotel in Lake Charles, Louisiana. According to his account, a gas meter reader heard him rehearsing the song and sent him to producer George Khoury, who recorded him and persuaded him to adopt the stage name Phil Phillips. The record first came out on Khoury’s independent label, became a hit in Louisiana, and was then distributed nationally by "Mercury Records". Phillips said he earned only $6,800 from the song and did not win the girl he had written it for. In time, he came to see that as a stroke of luck: he married the woman who was right for him.
With Plant and "The Honeydrippers", "Sea of Love" climbed to No. 3 on the US chart. It became one of Plant’s biggest hits outside "Led Zeppelin". The EP’s other single, "Rockin’ at Midnight", a cover of a Roy Brown song, reached No. 25. It is a different song from Brown’s earlier hit "Good Rockin’ Tonight", despite the similar titles.
Plant had never set out to become a singer of sweet ballads. Yet "Sea of Love" took off beyond anyone’s expectations, leaving him worried that people would remember him as a crooner rather than a rocker. "The Honeydrippers" remained a brief chapter: before long, Plant returned his attention to his own musical path.
"Volume One" reached No. 4 on the US album chart and earned platinum certification in the United States. Its five studio tracks showed that Plant could reinvent himself by returning to the music that had thrilled him long before anyone knew his name.
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