Robert Plant will bring Saving Grace and Suzi Dian to Parksnäckan in Uppsala on 13 July 2027 for the only Scandinavian concert on the Root & Branch tour. General ticket sales open through LiveNation.se on Monday 2 November at 10:00, with a members’ presale beginning Friday 30 October at 10:00.
The group’s self-titled album, co-produced by Plant and the musicians, draws on their shared interest in blues, folk, gospel and country. Vocal duties are distributed across the ensemble: Dian frequently shares the lead and sometimes takes it entirely, while Matt Worley sings Blind Willie Johnson’s “The Soul of a Man”, with the two principal singers providing backing vocals.
The repertoire places traditional material alongside more recent songwriting. “I Never Will Marry” and the African American spiritual “Gospel Plough” sit beside “Chevrolet”, which Donovan reworked into “Hey Gyp (Dig the Slowness)” in 1965. Low’s “Everybody’s Song” receives a dramatic treatment, while Moby Grape’s “It’s A Beautiful Day Today” adds another strand of American rock to the selection.
The project began locally in 2019, including unannounced support appearances for Fairport Convention. The pandemic interrupted touring and release plans; recording subsequently took place informally in a barn and outdoors, with microphones suspended from trees. Early local bookings proceeded without a website. A lone bison became the image on both the record sleeve and the concert backdrop.
The band’s beginnings lay in a bar conversation in the Welsh borderlands. Worley, who plays cuatro, two kinds of banjo and acoustic guitar, had followed Ian Campbell Folk Group and Peggy Seeger. His questions about Incredible String Band, Dave Swarbrick and Sandy Denny opened up a shared musical vocabulary with a singer whose own practical beginnings included washboard in a delta blues band in 1963.
Guitarist Tony Kelsey, formerly a member of one incarnation of The Move, joined at Plant’s suggestion. Dian brought experience both as a performer and as an educator who helped teachers develop children’s musical abilities. After trying a more conventional drummer, the group recruited her husband, Oli Jefferson, whose approach Plant describes as more polyrhythmic. Cellist Barney Morse-Brown, also known as Duotone, contributes on record and on tour.
Plant’s Grammy-winning collaboration with Alison Krauss had taught him to listen and sing in harmony with another voice. His roots work also included the 2010 version of Band of Joy with Patty Griffin and Buddy Miller. In September 2026, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 25th Americana Honors & Awards, held at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.
The arrangements sometimes retain the hypnotic, grinding grooves associated with his larger electric group, Sensational Space Shifters, which accompanied him on lullaby…and the Ceaseless Roar and Carry Fire. Elements of Malian desert blues and psychedelic folk also run through the music.
“The Ticket Taker”, by Providence, Rhode Island trio The Low Anthem, has a mysterious, melancholy atmosphere. A similarly ominous mood informs the traditional “As I Roved Out”, using Sam Amidon’s arrangement. Elsewhere, a composition by North Carolina songwriter Sarah Siskind becomes an energetic folk-rock performance.
“Higher Rock” brings a more direct, yearning, uptempo setting for Dian’s voice. Its writer, Portland’s Martha Scanlan, previously belonged to the string band Reeltime Players. The ensemble’s first journey beyond its home region took it to Ireland, where folk clubs and arts festivals along the west coast provided an early setting for its music.
Two sold-out American tours followed in autumn 2025 and spring 2026. The autumn 2026 itinerary, titled Up the Sharp End, comprised 17 concerts, including a sold-out Orpheum appearance in San Francisco and a headline performance at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park. Plant also joined his old friend Miller’s band at the festival.
American appearances extended to NPR Tiny Desk, CBS Saturday Morning and NPR World Café. Stephen Colbert interviewed the singer on The Late Show; a subsequent band appearance during the programme’s final month included the previously discussed Scanlan composition and “Ramble On”.
The four-track follow-up EP, Saving Grace: All That Glitters…, expands the repertoire with the traditional songs “The Blackest Crow” and “Two Coats”, alongside Gillian Welch’s “Orphan Girl” and Bert Jansch’s “Poison”.
