Robert Plant’s Saving Grace headlines 60th Cambridge Folk Festival

Robert Plant and his new musical venture Saving Grace, featuring Portuguese singer Suzi Dian, have been confirmed as the headline act for the 60th Cambridge Folk Festival this year.

The annual event at Cherry Hinton Hall Park will also welcome Fantastic Negrito, Mitsune, Peggy Seegar and family, Transatlantic Sessions, Ralph McTell, Oysterband, Talisk, Jerry Douglas and Dani Larkin among others.

The announcement of Robert Plant in the line-up for the 25-28 July festival is something of a coup for the organisers, who went online to share their delight.

The singer and lyricist has been prodigiously productive and inventive since the curtain came down on the legendary Led Zeppelin in 1980: from bluegrass to world music to blues-rock, Plant has embarked on musical collectives and collaborations, winning a Grammy for his 2009 bluegrass album Raising Sand with Alison Krauss.

The latest co-operative, Saving Grace, with Suzi Dian, began in 2019 and launched into a 2024 UK tour last month with what the festival calls “a selection of diverse cover versions collected from various places, creating a musical journey in its truest form” that takes in folk, Americana and blues.

The famed Cherry Hinton Hall site will also feature an exclusive UK festival appearance from Transatlantic Sessions, whose celebrated house band, led by Aly Bain and Jerry Douglas, will include multiple guests to explore the rich musical traditions connecting Scotland, Ireland and the US.

Also in the ever-popular three-day festival line-up are American singer and Grammy award-winning songwriter, Aoife O’Donovan; Western Scotland’s finest, Capercaillie; the award-winning and Billboard-charting vocalist, songwriter, and irreverent comedy queen, Flamy Grant; Isle of Man/Glasgow four-piece Mec Lir; Katherine Priddy, whose new album The Pendulum Swing is released this month; and Nashville-based “roots blues rock” band Larkin Poe.

Peggy Seeger is the 2024 US Legend performer.

“Now in her late 80s, her light burns as brightly as ever,” say the festival organisers, her visit “is made all the more perfect as Peggy performed at the very first Cambridge Folk Festival”.

Ticket details here.