T Bone Burnett came backstage to answer questions. After a liaison from the Recording Academy explained to Plant that the print media room wasn't especially lively, he said, "That's because there's no alcohol in here. This is like a Swedish press conference." Plant said that when he was in legendary English rock band Led Zeppelin, the members were enamored of American music. But that music tended to come from blues and R&B.Burnett has now produced two enormously successful, best-album winning works in the new century, the first being the multi-million selling O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack (which featured Krauss, of course). O Brother starred senior citizen bluegrass singer Ralph Stanley, while Plant and Krauss' Nashville-produced Raising Sand involves songs that were thought to be esoteric or uncommercial, by people like Roly Salley and the late, great Townes Van Zandt.
Asked about the notion of "accessible music," Burnett said, "What I think is that there is a limited number of people who like music. But those people really, really like music. The record industry got into the business of trying to sell music to everybody. If you make music for people who really care about music, you can do well."
