Robert Plant honored
Record Store Day named Robert Plant its 2026 “Record Store Legend,” and he’s tied the honor to a four‑track EP called Saving Grace: All That Glitters recorded with the band Saving Grace and singer Suzi Dian. ( ) Plant also visited Spillers Records as part of the celebration ahead of Record Store Day on April 18, which underscores the event’s focus on independent shops and limited collector releases. (billboard.com)
Robert Plant didn’t just get a plaque this week. He got a Record Store Day honor so rare that only Elton John in 2017 and Johnny Marr in 2025 had received it before him. (recordstoreday.com; billboard.com) The timing was deliberate: Record Store Day 2026 lands on Saturday, April 18, and Plant tied the award to an exclusive vinyl release instead of a greatest-hits victory lap. The release is a four-track extended play record called Saving Grace: All That Glitters. (recordstoreday.com; nonesuch.com) He made that record with Saving Grace, the band he built outside the Led Zeppelin orbit, and with singer Suzi Dian, who has become central to this chapter of his work. Nonesuch says the extended play was recorded especially for Record Store Day 2026. (nonesuch.com; everettpost.com) The four songs point away from hard rock and toward the music Plant has been chasing for years: two traditional songs, “The Blackest Crow” and “Two Coats,” plus Gillian Welch’s “Orphan Girl” and Bert Jansch’s “Poison.” That track list makes the release feel more like a handwritten mixtape than a stadium souvenir. (nonesuch.com) The shop chosen for the ceremony was Spillers Records in Cardiff, Wales, which Billboard described in 2023 and again this week as the world’s oldest record store. Plant went there to unveil the plaque in person ahead of the April 18 event. (billboard.com; recordstoreday.com) That stop matters because Record Store Day was built around independent shops, not streaming charts. Goldmine says the 2026 event is the 19th annual edition and will involve thousands of independent stores worldwide with limited releases, parties, and in-store performances. (goldminemag.com) Plant leaned into that physical-store idea in his statement, saying people want to “take home something very special” and connect the music to the artwork and package. That is almost a manifesto for Record Store Day, which still sells the trip to the shop as part of the product. (billboard.com) So the news is not just that a 77-year-old rock star got another trophy. It is that Record Store Day used one of its rarest honors to spotlight the version of Robert Plant who still browses bins, backs small shops, and puts out a short vinyl record made for people willing to show up on April 18 and flip through the racks. (billboard.com; recordstoreday.com; nonesuch.com)
