It's been a long time since he's rock 'n' rolled

"The kids have grown up, it's now time for daddy to have a good time," Robert Plant says. "I'm singing in zones I never knew were imaginable and my children, they're all entertainers, they just say, 'Go dad!' "

Dad's been having a remarkable late-career resurgence since he hooked up with singer Alison Krauss and producer T-Bone Burnett and won the 2009 Grammy Award for album of the year. The 62-year-old former lead singer of Led Zeppelin, who was in Toronto recently to promote his new album Band of Joy -- and who sold more than 200 million records when he fronted the band he now calls "the rocket ship" -- first struck out as a solo artist in 1982 after the death of his long-time friend and Zeppelin drummer John Bonham."

Plant's adventure is far from finished, although he's intentionally not making any concrete plans. There's been talk of a Led Zeppelin reunion since the group performed together at a 2007 tribute show, but Plant reportedly turned down US$200-million to launch a stadium tour.

"Would I want the pressure of being a big cheese on a stadium tour? I see what happens to U2 and who'd want that?" Plant says. "Give me a great theatre and the North Mississippi All-Stars kicking things off and I'm gone."