Jimmy Page, lead guitarist for the iconic heavy metal rock band Led Zeppelin is in a Los Angeles courtroom this week to defend his authorship of the introductory chord sequence in the band’s monster 1971 hit, “Stairway to Heaven.” The plaintiff in the case is suing Page for lifting the tune from an instrumental called “Taurus,” released three years earlier by the now-defunct Los Angeles psychedelic band Spirit. Music expert Timothy English says it’s not the first time the Led Zeppelin has been accused of copying the work of others without giving credit.
“Arguably Zeppelin’s second-most famous song ‘Whole Lotta Love’ they did not correctly attribute rightly when that song came out. Willie Dixon wrote a song called ‘You Need Love’ that Muddy Waters and later, The Small Faces covered, which has the same words and most of the music is ‘Whole Lotta Love.’ Willie Dixon is now credited with ‘Whole Lotta Love’ as a result of legal action in the 1980s.”
The estate of Spirit’s late guitarist, Randy Wolfe, also known as Randy California, is now hoping to get credit and a piece of the hundreds of millions of dollars in royalty income the song has earned over the years.
English said that in the liner notes of the Spirit album’s 1990s re-release, Wolfe wrote that people often accused him of ripping off the tune “Taurus” from Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.”
“He’s like, ‘No, my song came out three years earlier!’ ”
English says on the first day of the trial, the prosecution played Led Zeppelin covering another song called ‘Fresh Garbage’ – that they played live – also from that first Spirit album.”
English says it strains credulity to believe Page’s claim that he was unfamiliar with the song at the time he recorded “Stairway to Heaven.”
“I think as far as proving access – which you have to prove in any copyright infringement case – I think the plaintiffs have made a pretty strong case.”
English is the author of “Sounds Like Teen Spirit: Stolen Melodies, Ripped-off Riffs and the Secret History of Rock and Roll.” He was a guest on 790 KABC’s McIntyre in the Morning Show with Doug McIntyre and Terri-Rae Elmer.
By Sandy Wells
KABC News
