Alison Krauss

Alison Krauss returns to Jazz Fest to perform with Robert Plant.

 Photo by Matthew Hinton / The Times-Picayune

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss

5:30-7 p.m. Friday

Shell Gentilly Stage

Yes, this is the Robert Plant you are looking for. But maybe not the songs you were expecting. Even at 74 years old, the former Led Zeppelin frontman still has a voice that can simultaneously grumble and hit the upper octaves — like a crusty but nimble rubber band — but this time he’s singing bluegrass tunes.

It’s almost criminal to start with Plant when bluegrass fiddler Alison Krauss’ name might deserve to come before his. With 27 Grammys, she’s tied for the fourth most Grammy-winning artist of all time, only beaten out by the likes of Beyonce and Quincy Jones. Five of those Grammys she won with Plant, including for “Raising Sand,” for which they both won Album of the Year in 2009.

Plant and Krauss first met at a Lead Belly tribute gig in 2004 before deciding to regularly team up, and their chemistry is vibrant. Despite being born in Illinois, Krauss’s country twang belongs in Nashville as much as her tone belongs in the seraphim, while Plant pulls back on the kind of spitfire rock ‘n’ roll crackle heard on Led Zeppelin tracks like, “Whole Lotta Love,” to a softer croon to braid more delicately with Krauss.

“I was basically tutored by Alison,” Plant told The Guardian in 2017. “She’s a very precise singer who’s done more duets than you can shake a stick at, and I was thinking, ‘Help, I’m a rock singer, no matter what I do!’”

“Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)” from “Raising Sand” is perfect proof that Plant can hold back just as expertly as he can let go. Their harmonies bounce along a chugging guitar, only for Plant to let go on a scatting-like solo toward the end that reminds you this is the very same voice that carried “Immigrant Song.”

Plant’s “transition” from rock to bluegrass doesn’t feel unnatural at all. After all, the second British Invasion was deeply influenced by the Delta Blues as well as Appalachian music like bluegrass. If anything, it feels like a long overdue homecoming. And it feels perfectly at home at Jazz Fest.