Robert Plant named RSD legend
Record Store Day (April 18) has named Robert Plant this year’s Record Store Legend, and he’s tied to a limited four‑track EP, “Saving Grace: All That Glitters,” issued with the band Saving Grace and singer Suzi Dian. ( ) The wider RSD slate also lists major names like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Bruce Springsteen among exclusive 2026 releases, so collectors should plan their store runs. (uncut.co.uk)
Robert Plant is getting a new kind of rock-star honor this month: not for a tour, not for a chart, but for being named Record Store Day’s 2026 Record Store Legend ahead of the event on Saturday, April 18. Record Store Day’s organizers tied the award to a new exclusive Plant release that will only hit participating independent shops that day. (billboard.com, recordstoreday.com) That award is unusually selective. Record Store Day says Elton John received the title in 2017, Johnny Marr received it in 2025, and Plant is now the latest artist added to that short list by the United States and United Kingdom arms of the event together. (recordstoreday.com, goldminemag.com) Plant’s release is a 12-inch vinyl extended play record called “Saving Grace: All That Glitters…” on Nonesuch Records, and Record Store Day lists 3,500 copies for the run. The format matters because Record Store Day exclusives are built around scarcity, with fans lining up at brick-and-mortar stores for small batches that usually do not get a standard wide release that morning. (recordstoreday.com, nonesuch.com) The record is not a Led Zeppelin nostalgia piece. It is tied to Plant’s current group Saving Grace, with singer Suzi Dian, and Nonesuch says it follows his recent “Saving Grace” album with the same lineup of musicians from the English countryside where Plant lives. (nonesuch.com, recordstoreday.co.uk) The four songs point away from hard rock and toward folk and Americana covers that Plant has been circling for years. Record Store Day’s release page lists “Blackest Crow,” “Poison,” “Orphan Girl,” and “She Cried” as the tracks on the final extended play record. (recordstoreday.com) Record Store Day also leaned into the shopkeeper side of Plant’s image when it announced the award. Billboard and Record Store Day both highlighted his visit to Spillers Records in Cardiff, which is widely billed as the world’s oldest record store, where he appeared in a promotional video tied to the honor. (billboard.com, recordstoreday.com) The timing matters because Record Store Day 2026 is crowded with heavyweight names, which means collectors will be making choices before dawn. Uncut’s guide says the April 18 slate includes exclusives from Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, John Lennon, Tom Petty, Suede, and more. (uncut.co.uk, uncut.co.uk) So Plant’s award is doing two jobs at once. It crowns one of rock’s most famous singers as a patron saint of record shops, and it gives buyers one more limited item to hunt on a day when the bottleneck is not streaming clicks but how fast you can get through the door of an independent store on April 18. (recordstoreday.com, recordstoreday.com, uncut.co.uk)
