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Hi, I thought James and Frodo might appreciate this.....

http://www.furious.com/perfect/jimmypage.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I love Jimmy Page as a guitarist/producer but also find it apropos that he was awarded an OBE considering the history of the British Empire, LOL.

funkyfreddy wrote:Hi, I thought James and Frodo might appreciate this.....

http://www.furious.com/perfect/jimmypage.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I love Jimmy Page as a guitarist/producer but also find it apropos that he was awarded an OBE considering the history of the British Empire, LOL.

Hmmm... history of the British Empire - unlike the USA's flawless more recent past I suppose? This is very old hat - Jimmy Page has always owned up to this influence of old blues tunes on some of his riffs - and very much a part of the blues tradition to take things and move on. He managed to be very successful in making these riffs new and relevant to a new audience. Is Stairway to Heaven stolen from anyone? Is the Rain Song? So basically its a few riffs in the first two albums. Nobody bought those riffs before Page re-invented them. He made up a whole lot more. Not quite sure what this has to do with the British Empire (I guess this is some limp wristed attempt to synthesise a profound parallell of moral superiority). LOL indeed to that one. Stick to talking about music and leave the history for another forum .

If you bothered to read the article you might find out that yes, the instrumental intro to Stairway To Heaven was stolen from Spirit, a California band LZ used to tour with.

We are not talking about a few riffs here and there. We're talking about whole songs stolen from artists that were only credited after LZ were sued by them, and not just older blues artists either.

Maybe I should clarify my reference to the British empire. The BE used to license privateers (pirates) to prey on other nations vessels on the high seas..... perhaps you might see a parallel now, LOL.

I love Zeppelin but agree and have known about all of this for a long time.
They repackaged other artists works and after a while one has to say: "how many more times" to see a pattern.
Zeppelin were guilty of not giving proper credit to the original songwriters once can be excused but they hold the record for this repeatable action for it to be just a coincidence.
I love Jimmy Page,he is a great guitarist & producer, IMO one of the most innovative producers in Rock history,I love LZ but their business practices and ethics re: giving credits to the original artist works they"borrowed" weren't the best and bordered on shameful.

funkyfreddy wrote:If you bothered to read the article you might find out that yes, the instrumental intro to Stairway To Heaven was stolen from Spirit, a California band LZ used to tour with.

We are not talking about a few riffs here and there. We're talking about whole songs stolen from artists that were only credited after LZ were sued by them, and not just older blues artists either.

Maybe I should clarify my reference to the British empire. The BE used to license privateers (pirates) to prey on other nations vessels on the high seas..... perhaps you might see a parallel now, LOL.

I did actually read the article which reads like sour grapes and I just don't buy that about Stairway to Heaven - there is a whole lot more to it than just the intro or a chord sequence - that is why I say it wasn't stolen from anyone. Led Zeppelin were successful and their management stomped on some people of course - but at the same time record companies (particularly American ones) were screwing people left right and centre. Please don't moralise about poor older blues artists - they had already been screwed by their own music industry long before Led Zeppelin came along. Led Zeppelin actually helped shift the balance in favour of the artist and receipt of royalties. You seem to believe there was a conspiracy whereas it just wasn't like that.

You have revised your reference about the British Empire which originally reads like a cheap attempt at Brit bashing. The parallel is forced and works even less well now you have "clarified" it. There are numerous ways of pulling apart your argument and turning it back to look at your own nation's history and foreign policy. But this is not a history or political forum. Say what you like about Led Zeppelin of course - everybody loves a conspiracy - LOL indeed.

What I remember about LZ when they first arrived is how they were constantly banging on about indebtedness to the blues legacy. It seemed odd because to my much younger ears, they were so much more exciting than the musicians they claimed to be copying. Same mental disconnect when the Beatles said they owed it all to Little Richard, etc. It came off as well orchestrated British humility.

bayswater wrote:What I remember about LZ when they first arrived is how they were constantly banging on about indebtedness to the blues legacy. It seemed odd because to my much younger ears, they were so much more exciting than the musicians they claimed to be copying. Same mental disconnect when the Beatles said they owed it all to Little Richard, etc. It came off as well orchestrated British humility.

The British Blues explosion, which ironically sold the blues back to the USA (including Jimi Hendrix who had to come to Britain to get success) did actually help to raise the profile of the blues artists who were supposedly "ripped off". And having just listened to Spirit's "Taurus" there is some similarity in the downward chord progression to the first part of "Stairway to Heaven" but that is it - it is an awful long way from the Led Zeppelin classic. Jimmy Page was a bit of a magpie like most artists but (like Bob Dylan) made use of his inspirations to make something new and better. I think the article is jaundiced and gives no credit to Jimmy Page for doing better what many contemporaries had tried to do - to fuse together older blues with a modern and exciting form of music. It is nothing to do with the British Empire or privateers.

I worked for a small company that obtained the catalog of a deceased part-time blues writer from his daughter. Subsequently, we discovered a bit one of the songs he co-wrote was used in a LZ track...never credited. Settled for a decent sum without too much trouble (they had been through it before, obviously). Daughter was thrilled.

It's a fact that LZ pirated/stole music from a lot of artists. They seem to have had an "anything goes" mentality and didn't credit anyone until they started to get sued..... anyone who wipes the stars from their eyes should be able to see this.

Amazing to me what George Harrison went through when you compare what he did to what LZ got away with.

funkyfreddy wrote:It's a fact that LZ pirated/stole music from a lot of artists. They seem to have had an "anything goes" mentality and didn't credit anyone until they started to get sued..... anyone who wipes the stars from their eyes should be able to see this.

Amazing to me what George Harrison went through when you compare what he did to what LZ got away with.

"anyone who wipes the stars from their eyes should be able to see this" - no stars in my eyes sorry to disappoint. The article is not very balanced shall we say (by a disgruntled fan of the Yardbirds camp), and really what Led Zeppelin did was do what blues artists always did - a typical 12 bar blues sequence - who wrote that first? Its a genre of music which Led Zeppelin helped transform. A riff gets used here and there, an arrangement, maybe a chord sequence. The case made in the article is often so biased and sometimes fanciful concerning some songs which were supposed to be stolen from several sources. The Spirit track Taurus is a case in point - its pretty poor to be honest and you cannot seriously claim that Led Zeppelin should give Spirit royalties from Stairway to Heaven. Its what you do with the sources. Most of these sources were starting points only. I have listened to most of these over the years and have never been that impressed. So we differ.

And in stark contrast, the Rolling Stones did the right thing and even invited some of the original artists over to the U.K. along with helping them to collect royalties.

So I do not excuse Led Zeppelin or Beach Boys, as much as I love both bands. They could have done right but chose not to.

There's some good documentary footage related to how various UK and US bands treated their sources, in the excellent film "Cadillac Records" from a few years back.

Guitar Gaz wrote:

funkyfreddy wrote:It's a fact that LZ pirated/stole music from a lot of artists. They seem to have had an "anything goes" mentality and didn't credit anyone until they started to get sued..... anyone who wipes the stars from their eyes should be able to see this.

Amazing to me what George Harrison went through when you compare what he did to what LZ got away with.

"anyone who wipes the stars from their eyes should be able to see this" - no stars in my eyes sorry to disappoint. The article is not very balanced shall we say (by a disgruntled fan of the Yardbirds camp), and really what Led Zeppelin did was do what blues artists always did - a typical 12 bar blues sequence - who wrote that first? Its a genre of music which Led Zeppelin helped transform. A riff gets used here and there, an arrangement, maybe a chord sequence. The case made in the article is often so biased and sometimes fanciful concerning some songs which were supposed to be stolen from several sources. The Spirit track Taurus is a case in point - its pretty poor to be honest and you cannot seriously claim that Led Zeppelin should give Spirit royalties from Stairway to Heaven. Its what you do with the sources. Most of these sources were starting points only. I have listened to most of these over the years and have never been that impressed. So we differ.

It's not just this one article, this has been common knowledge for many years.
The problem I and many people have with Zeppelin is that they didn't "borrow" an occasional riff here and there ,they lifted entire songs from the original artists and did not give credit until lawyers got involved.
There is a world of difference between using a standard 12 bar blues progression and plagiarizing entire songs with the same title and basically the same lyrics changed slightly to appear contemporary in it's day.
Honestly as a kid I preferred LZ doing the blues, but as I've gotten older, most of the LZ blues renditions sound 2nd rate and don't really age well.
I'd rather listen to the original artist 99% of the time.
For me a voice like Robert Johnson or Muddy Waters sounds right, a young screechy Robert Plant is painful for me to listen to.
But I do love the way they played.

My objection to the original posting was the sneering tone about the "British Empire" and the Brit bashing - and then the subsequent revision to making some point about the "British Empire" awarding pirates with OBE's (as if the original post was a thought through historical analysis rather than the lazy snipe that it was). Jimmy Page was actually awarded an OBE in 2005 for his charitable work helping street children in Brazil.

The rest of this story is well known and has been known by me from day 1 of following Led Zeppelin - this is one article which is a more jaundiced view from an anti Led Zeppelin camp. The blues in the US was largely ignored by young black and white people until the British bands re-invented it and sold it back to the US. It did actually raise the profile so ironically some original blues artists benefited. To me it's as much about performance as actual songs - which is why it doesn't bother me as much as some people. I was only drawn in by the reference to my country which I thought was a bit rich given other nations' foreign policies.

kgdrum wrote:I love Zeppelin but agree and have known about all of this for a long time.
They repackaged other artists works and after a while one has to say: "how many more times" to see a pattern.
Zeppelin were guilty of not giving proper credit to the original songwriters once can be excused but they hold the record for this repeatable action for it to be just a coincidence.
I love Jimmy Page,he is a great guitarist & producer, IMO one of the most innovative producers in Rock history,I love LZ but their business practices and ethics re: giving credits to the original artist works they"borrowed" weren't the best and bordered on shameful.

I have to agree. If this article is accurate, the reality is LZ were both amazing musically, but thieves (by not paying due royalties).

DV


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