Robert Plant

Guardian UK: A life in music: Robert Plant on Led Zeppelin, Alison Krauss and his endless wanderlust

Plant’s solo career kicked off in the 80s with dreamy FM radio epics such as Big Log, but this 1990 track from Manic Nirvana underlines his great love back then: north African music. A 1972 holiday to Marrakech lit the flame, but he also loved “the beautiful, swirling orchestras of Cairo”, and the bendir style of hand-drumming, used across North Africa, which became a bedrock for many later songs.