Robert Plant was named the 2026 Record Store Legend on Wednesday, April 8, giving the eight-time Grammy winner a new honor just 10 days before Record Store Day 2026 festivities begin on April 18. The announcement sends Plant into this year’s campaign as both the face of a lifetime of crate-digging and one of the event’s most recognizable champions of the physical record.
Plant, 77, has spent his whole life frequenting record stores, and he has kept doing it recently in West Virginia, Kansas City, Missouri, Raleigh, North Carolina and Austin, Texas. He has albums in those shops under Led Zeppelin, Robert Plant and The Honeydrippers, a discography that spans the shelves as much as the stage. In a statement, Plant said record stores have always been part of his life and that once a listener gets to the physical record, it means they really want to know and be part of what the artist was considering. He added that, as someone who has been making records since 1966, he understands why people want to take home something special and connect the music with the art of the whole thing.
The honor came with a permanent Record Store Legend plaque placed at Spillers Records in Cardiff, Wales, where Plant visited ahead of the April 18 celebration. Spillers was profiled by Billboard in 2023 as the world’s oldest record store, giving the presentation a fitting backdrop for an award tied to the culture of browsing, buying and keeping records alive. Plant now joins a short list of recipients: before him, only Elton John and Johnny Marr had received the Record Store Legend award.
Record Store Day also has a celebrity ambassador every year, and Bruno Mars holds that role for 2026, but the Legend award is handed out sparingly. That is what makes this one stand out. Ashli Todd said the universe already recognizes Plant as a legend through decades of recording and performing, but record shops around the world will know firsthand that his appetite for discovery has not waned. She said it was the organization’s honor to serve as the custodians of his plaque, a line that fits the moment better than any marketing slogan could. For Plant, the award is less a lifetime capstone than a public acknowledgment of what he has long acted like: a customer who never stopped caring about the music on the racks.
