Spirit sues Led Zep

[nofi]

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/led-zeppelin-sued-lifting-riff-stairway-heaven-article-1.1799433

who really cares anymore. just one more suit against the band. add it to the pile.

[rahock]

Interesting thing is that Randy California did nothing about it when he was alive .
Rick

[westen44]

Interesting thing is that Randy California did nothing about it when he was alive .
Rick

From what I've read, not being able to afford the legal expenses.  He was playing in a restaurant for food in the days before his death which came about trying to rescue his son from drowning.  At least his estate has said they didn't pursue things from not having money.  My personal impression of Randy California is that he just let things happen in life and didn't particularly try to be assertive.  But I could be wrong about that.  Just a guess on my part. 

[gearHed289]

I listened to the Spirit track, and it's pretty obvious where the opening section of Stairway came from. However, there's a whole lot more to Stairway than that, and I don't hear any of Plants vocal melody. The estate may or may not be entitled to SOMETHING, but Zep certainly didn't steal the SONG Stairway to Heaven from Spirit.

[uwe]

Yawn, how old is that?! Of course did Jimmy Page draw the intro from Randy California (Spirit and Zep shared gigs), he has even admitted it. Likewise Randy knew when he heard it and was actually flattered (he is on record for that). People didn't always go for each other's throats back then or Deep Purple would have been dead after stealing the Child in Time intro note for note from It's A Beautiful Day in 1969. Rather than suing, It's a beautiful day laughed and stole a song from Purple on their next album.

California didn't have the money to sue Page? Don't make the forest echo with laughter, the contingency fee lawyers would have been queuing up from his house all the way up to, errrm, Valhalla or wherever Led Zeppelin live.

Randy California was a nice man, a fine guitarist and consumate performer, his band was not "little-known" (which moron wrote that in that article?!), he even played with Deep Purple when Blackmore had hepatitis (and Ian Gillan loved his slide playing during Child in Time) and he died trying to save his son. That's more than a decent track record. His descendants seem to be greedy gold-diggers though.

Did I mention that I always found that Stairway intro twee and that the whole song is hugely overrated? Give me Kashmir or In my Time of Dying or even The Battle of Evermore anyday. Also, can anybody explain to me what Stairway to Heaven (the lyrics) is actually about?

[westen44]

Randy California's uncle owned a night club in California.  As a teenager, he would go there, of course, and see the famous people.  Briefly, his family moved to New York City.  In a chance encounter, he met Jimi Hendrix who ended up asking him to play in his band Jimmy James and the Blue Flames.  It was Jimi who gave him his "California" nickname as his last name.  They played for three months for seven dollars a night before Jimi was asked by Chas Chandler to go to England.  Randy was invited to go with him, but he was too young, still only fifteen.  Just a few years later with Hendrix's death, it seems that that had an effect in contributing to his depression.  I don't know the details of all that happened with Spirit, but he appeared to be disillusioned with it eventually.  It was after leaving Spirit that he made the Kapt. Kopter and the Fabulous Twirly Birds album.  It's of some interest to me because of the Hendrix influence.  Noel Redding is on a few tracks under another name.  I think it was not long after that that he went on the Deep Purple tour.  I haven't heard any of those various albums he released after that, although I gather there weren't many and they most likely didn't have much commercial success. 

I'm reading just now that Randy was working on releasing a Kapt. Kopter 2 just prior to his death.  I wasn't aware of that. 

[rahock]

Maybe someone here is familiar with the Jimmy Page era Yardbirds song that contains  about half of what later became of Stairway to Heaven. I can't remember the album or name of the song, but back when Stairway to Heaven was new, a buddy of mine brought it to my attention. At the time Zep was telling some BS story about how the song came together like magic in matter of minutes. My friend put the old Yardbirds tune on and it certainly sounded like the framework for Stairway to me.
Does anyone know what song I'm talking about?
Rick

[gweimer]

[Further, the chord progression in "Stairway To Heaven" is incredibly similiar to a song by the Chocolate Watch Band, "And She's Lonely." The Yardbirds played with the Chocolate Watch Band during Page's tenure.]

I found this in digging around.  Here's the song - listen about 3:00

[gweimer]

More fuel for the fire - http://www.furious.com/perfect/yardbirds2.html

[Dave W]

The lawsuit is news. Page's history is old news. Since Mark Andes is working with the attorney on this, you can bet that he wants some compensation, NTTAWWT. It's not just some altruistic attempt to get an acknowledgement.

[westen44]

The lawsuit is news. Page's history is old news. Since Mark Andes is working with the attorney on this, you can bet that he wants some compensation, NTTAWWT. It's not just some altruistic attempt to get an acknowledgement.

The attorney for the California estate isn't known for his altruism; that's true. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/music-news/10851780/Lawyer-suing-Led-Zeppelin-heavily-criticised-by-judge.html

[Denis]

Everyone stole from everyone. Blues is a history of stolen music and riffs. Rock has a history of stealing from blues, classical, etc. Lots of bands in the '60s recorded Beatles, Rolling Stones and Dylan songs on their albums while those bands were still recording. I doubt anyone would get away with that now.

If Randy C didn't care back then, why should people worry about it now?

[uwe]

I guess he wasn't the type and just didn't want to do it, there must have been enough people that tried to talk him into it. Suing Zep for stealing musical ideas was all the rage - these days I believe they have to even co-credit Whole Lotta Love. It would have been easy enough, the intros are darn near identical and it is not a chord voicing you are likely to make up on your own (though I never liked it, but I sure wouldn't have minded getting the royalties).

If I was Page I'd probably buy Randy's widow a house and finance the education of her kids/grandchildren - as a token of appreciation for inspiration, I don't believe that such a gesture would put a sizeable part of his wealth managers out of work. If she wanted more than that I'd probably see it through. Fact is that Spirit never had the clout to project that song component to the masses - it needed a platform like Led Zep IV (and probably Plant's silly hippie lyrics laid over it) to find its way into the guitar stores ...

[OldManC]

Suing Zep for stealing musical ideas was all the rage - these days I believe they have to even co-credit Whole Lotta Love.

It may be all the rage, but that would only be because Page outright stole what made up most of Zep's first few albums without giving any credit at all to those he stole from. Taurus almost certainly provided the intro for Stairway and some of these do feel more like the "borrowing" that many bands do (of limited pieces and riffs), but others are downright ripoffs.

   

In many circumstances their versions sounded very different (and arguably improved in the case of that Joan Baez one), but that doesn't change at all the fact that Page took the work of previous artists and presented it as his own (including songwriting credits and for publishing purposes).

[OldManC]

Of course, borrowing a riff here and there is a time honored tradition in rock and roll, right, Uwe?