Robert Plant honored

Robert Plant is getting a new plaque and a new record on the same day. Record Store Day organizers picked him as their 2026 Record Store Legend, and his new 12-inch vinyl extended play record with Saving Grace and Suzi Dian is scheduled for April 18. (recordstoreday.com, 1057thepoint.com) The award is not a general lifetime-achievement trophy from the music industry. Record Store Day says it comes from the record-store world itself, and the 2026 honor is a joint award from the United States and United Kingdom branches. (goldminemag.com, 1057thepoint.com) Record Store Day is the annual Saturday when independent shops build their whole day around limited releases, live sets, and lines at the door. The 2026 event falls on Saturday, April 18, and organizers say thousands of stores worldwide take part. (goldminemag.com, nonesuch.com) Plant fits that world better than a lot of classic-rock stars because he has kept treating record shops like working parts of music culture, not museum pieces. Record Store Day’s statement praised his support for new artists, record shops, and the store community around them. (goldminemag.com, gratefulweb.com) The release tied to the award is not a Led Zeppelin archive item or a greatest-hits package. It is a new four-track extended play record called *Saving Grace: All That Glitters... with Suzi Dian*, issued by Nonesuch as a Record Store Day exclusive. (recordstoreday.com, nonesuch.com) Saving Grace is Plant’s current band, built around musicians from the English countryside where he lives, and Suzi Dian is the singer whose voice is paired with his across the project. Nonesuch says the new extended play record continues the sound of the recent *Saving Grace* album rather than starting a separate side project. (nonesuch.com, shorefire.com) The four songs show what this band actually does with Plant’s catalog-sized reputation: they mostly avoid old hits and rebuild other writers’ songs. Record Store Day lists “Blackest Crow,” “Poison,” “Orphan Girl,” and “She Cried” on the extended play record. (recordstoreday.com, nonesuch.com) Three of those names point straight to the band’s map of influences. “Poison” comes from Bert Jansch, “Orphan Girl” comes from Gillian Welch, and “Blackest Crow” is a traditional song arranged by Plant and Saving Grace. (recordstoreday.com, recordstoreday.co.uk) The physical details are pure Record Store Day economics: one format, one day, limited supply. The release is a 12-inch vinyl extended play record, and Record Store Day lists a quantity of 3,500 copies. (recordstoreday.com) That number helps explain why this honor comes with a record instead of just a speech. Record Store Day works by turning artists into reasons to walk into a local shop on a specific Saturday, and Plant is arriving with both a collectible item and a reputation built long before streaming. (recordstoreday.com, goldminemag.com) There is a small lineage to the award too. Goldmine reports Elton John was the first recipient in 2017, Johnny Marr received it in 2025, and Plant now takes the 2026 slot with a release designed for the bins those stores still live on. (goldminemag.com)