“Why don't you take off your clothes?” asks Robert Plant, grinning, clutching at the bare white towel wrapped around his waist.

Sheesh.

It didn't seem so funny at the time, but Plant’s polite query, addressed to the three of us—one interviewer and two record company VIPs—seemed very logical, considering that we were soaked to the skin by a late afternoon downpour. The Scene: a superswank hotel suite at the Plaza, in Manhattan, the sort of room where three “Magic” Johnsons might stand on each other’s shoulders and still not touch the ceiling Plant, himself soaked by the same sudden shower, grinned at the irony as he went to the room attached to change.