Record Store Day honors Plant
Record Store Day on April 18 will honor Robert Plant as a 'Record Store Legend' and plant him at the center of limited releases — he’s also set to issue a four‑track EP, Saving Grace: All That Glitters, with Saving Grace and Suzi Dian. Local shops are already planning for the rush — for example, Syracuse’s The Sound Garden says it will open at 9 a.m. on April 18 for collectors chasing exclusives. (goldminemag.com) (syracuse.com)
Robert Plant is turning Record Store Day into a new release day too: on Saturday, April 18, 2026, he is being honored as a “Record Store Legend” and will also have a Record Store Day exclusive 12-inch vinyl EP in stores the same day. (recordstoreday.com 1) (recordstoreday.com 2) The EP is called *Saving Grace: All That Glitters… with Suzi Dian*, and Record Store Day says it contains four new studio recordings by Plant, Suzi Dian, and the band Saving Grace. The track list is “Blackest Crow,” “Poison,” “Orphan Girl,” and “She Cried.” (recordstoreday.com) This is not a Led Zeppelin nostalgia drop. Record Store Day describes the EP as a continuation of Plant’s newer *Saving Grace* project, which centers on the band he formed with Suzi Dian rather than on his 1970s catalog. (recordstoreday.com 1) (recordstoreday.com 2) The award itself is unusually selective. Goldmine reports that the “Record Store Legend” honor is jointly given by Record Store Day United States and Record Store Day United Kingdom, with Elton John named first in 2017 and Johnny Marr following in 2025 before Plant in 2026. (goldminemag.com) Plant’s ceremony also fits the record-store mythology of the event. Record Store Day says he visited Spillers Records in Wales, which Billboard described as the world’s oldest record store, to oversee installation of the official plaque. (recordstoreday.com) (billboard.com) Record Store Day works because it mixes scarcity with ritual. The organization says the event began from a 2007 meeting of independent store owners and employees, launched its first day on April 19, 2008, and now involves nearly 1,400 independently owned stores in the United States plus thousands more internationally. (recordstoreday.com 1) (recordstoreday.com 2) That scale is why one artist can become the face of the day without being the whole day. The official 2026 release list includes hundreds of special titles, and Plant’s EP appears on that list as one of the exclusives collectors will be hunting on April 18. (recordstoreday.com) (recordstoreday.com) The local-store side is already moving into line-management mode. Syracuse.com reports that The Sound Garden in Syracuse will open at 9 a.m. on April 18 for shoppers chasing limited editions, which is exactly how Record Store Day turns a vinyl release into an early-morning queue outside a neighborhood shop. (syracuse.com) So the story is bigger than a plaque and smaller than a tour. Plant is using Record Store Day’s one-day retail rush to spotlight a four-song release with Saving Grace and Suzi Dian, while the stores get the foot traffic that the event was built to create back in 2008. (recordstoreday.com) (recordstoreday.com)
