Robert Plant, Alison Krauss Are the Latest Rock Music Odd Couple

While Englishman Robert Plant was finishing his reign with the biggest, baddest rock band on the planet, a preteen Alison Krauss was hitting fiddle contests in Illinois.

Who would have dreamed a quarter-century later, the Led Zeppelin frontman would team up with that kid, now a sweet-singing bluegrass star?

The combo could have clashed, but instead their album "Raising Sand" — helmed by "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" musical maestro T Bone Burnett — turned out to be a masterpiece of moody Americana, landing on multiple year-end Top 10 lists and going platinum. The subsequent tour, which hits Berkeley June 27, has done boffo business and earned rave reviews from Belgium to

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Bonnaroo.

But for every musical Reese’s Cup, there’s another oddball pairing that jibes like sugar and soup. So let’s take a moment now to look back at some previous musical mismatches — good, bad and utterly ridiculous.

Jimi Hendrix/Monkees

WHAT: Concert tour, 1967.

CALL IT: Opening act gets the funniest looks from everyone he meets.

THE SKINNY: The Prefab Four had loads of hits but yearned for credibility, while Hendrix had wowed the hipsters at Monterey but was unknown to the country at large. Could they help each other? Nope. In the few shows before the experiment was scuttled by mutual consent, prepubescent girls held their ears and screamed "We want Davy!’" as Hendrix

served up "Purple Haze" and "Foxey Lady."

AFTERMATH: The Hendrix camp concocted a priceless story that the Daughters of the American Revolution had Jimi kicked off the tour for being "too erotic." He proceeded to blow the world’s mind for the last three years of his life. The Monkees’ 15 minutes fizzled out the following year, though maracas-playing cutie pie Davy Jones made a memorable guest appearance on "The Brady Bunch" a few years later.

Bing Crosby/David Bowie

WHAT: Duet on "Little Drummer Boy," recorded 1977.

CALL IT: Mr. "White Christmas" meets the "Thin White Duke."

THE SKINNY: Bowie, like others of his generation, grew up listening to Crosby. Der Bingle, like most of his generation, had never heard of Bowie prior to 1977. That did not stop the classic crooner from agreeing to have the flamboyant rocker, then best known for playing androgynous space alien Ziggy Stardust, on his yearly Christmas special. Bing even agreed to sing with Bowie, which resulted in the stunningly surreal duet of "Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy."

AFTERMATH: The performance aired on CBS during the holiday season of ’77, roughly a month after Crosby died of a heart attack on Oct. 14, and it made a lasting impact on viewers. Some 23 years later, TV Guide chose the duet as one of the 25 best televised musical moments. The medley would be officially released as a single in 1982, and it’s been a part of the regular holiday rotation at shopping centers ever since.

Aerosmith/Run-D.M.C.

WHAT: Recorded "Walk This Way," 1986.

CALL IT: The ultimate musical win-win.

THE SKINNY: Aerosmith’s career was colder than a Boston winter. Run-D.M.C. was the biggest fish in the hip-hop pond, a body of water then looked upon with suspicion, even hostility, by most rock fans. Maverick producer Rick Rubin might have been the only person on the planet who would have thought of combining the two on a decade-old Aerosmith hit.

AFTERMATH: The resulting smash helped make Run-D.M.C. rap’s first crossover superstars, and Aerosmith went from drug-addled has-beens to bigger stars than they’d been the first time around. More significantly, the song (and its video) helped obliterate the wall between rock and hip-hop, paving the way for a generation that doesn’t think twice about jumping from Weezer to Kanye West on their iPods.

Metallica/San Francisco Symphony

WHAT: Concerts, 1999.

CALL IT: A type of "S&M" that could only happen in the Bay Area.

THE SKINNY: By most reports, composer Michael Kamen had been trying to get the speed-metal titans to work with a symphony orchestra for years. His persistence finally paid off, and Metallica joined forces with the San Francisco Symphony for two shows, April 21-22, 1999, at the Berkeley Community Theatre. The huge ensemble, under the direction of conductor Kamen, performed symphonic rock versions of "Enter Sandman,""Master of Puppets" and other Metallica favorites.

AFTERMATH: The shows were recorded and released as an album and a DVD, both titled "S&M." The two-CD set did well on the Billboard 200, topping out at No. 2, and received warm reviews in Rolling Stone and other periodicals. It would also snare a rock-instrumental Grammy. The success of "S&M" would lead other rockers to similar ventures. So, you can thank (or blame) Metallica for "Kiss Symphony: Alive IV" and "Ian Anderson Plays the Orchestral Jethro Tull."

Elton John/Eminem

WHAT: Grammy duet, 2001.

CALL IT: Sir Elton makes a "Shady" union.

THE SKINNY: It was strange enough to hear Eminem sample pop-queen Dido on the single "Stan." Yet what Slim Shady would do as a follow-up was even more bizarre. During his controversial performance at the 2001 Grammy Awards — which fell amid protests from those who perceived the rapper’s rhymes to be homophobic — Eminem took the stage with one of the best-known supporters of gay and lesbian causes, Elton John. The unlikely pair sang "Stan," with John handling the Dido lines.

AFTERMATH: This Grammy performance benefitted both entertainers. The fact that the openly gay John would associate with Eminem helped quiet the rapper’s many detractors in the gay community. In turn, John, despite not having recorded anything worthwhile in years, got to share in the biggest moment of the music industry’s biggest night. In retrospect, however, this collaboration can now be seen as when rap/rock unions "jumped the shark" and became decidedly unhip.

Willie Nelson/Wynton Marsalis

WHAT: "Two Men With the Blues," recorded in concert in 2007, to be released July 8.

CALL IT: Country legend jams with jazz royalty

THE SKINNY: Nelson is a road warrior who will seemingly play any venue with a stage. Yet most fans would never expect to see the country singer on a jazz bill at Lincoln Center in New York City, which is where Nelson joined New Orleans-born trumpeter Marsalis for two concerts. The two stars found common ground in such blues and jazz standards as "Georgia on My Mind" and "Stardust." The whole thing worked so well that jazz label Blue Note is releasing the CD "Two Men With the Blues," which documents the summit.

AFTERMATH: The album will hit shelves July 8, and it’s sure to please both longtime Nelson fans and Marsalis admirers. Yet it seems commercial enough that the general public (especially the Starbucks crowd) might bite as well. Also, it’s just the type of cross-genre star-studded effort that Grammy voters tend to embrace; thus, we can easily see the album taking home some gold come trophy time. Will this record spawn a trend? Could a Toby Keith-Pat Metheny outing be right around the corner? Doubtful.

Reach Jim Harrington at jharrington@bayareanewsgroup.com and Shay Quillen at squillen@mercurynews.com. For more music coverage, read the Concert Blog at www.ibabuzz.com/concerts.