Origins: Stairway to heaven

Subject: Origins: Stairway to heaven
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 07:06 PM

I was reading about a law suite bought against led Zeppelin by the family of the writer of a song called Taurus, by Spirit , so I listened to it on Alexa . You can certainly hear the same chord progression utilised at the start of Stairway , but I thought there was an extra edge on led Zeppelin ,not evident in Taurus . There must be many songs , that borrow or enlarge on earlier works, so that only the most obvious plagiarising should win damages ?

Subject: RE: Origins: Stairway to heaven
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 07:37 PM

I don't think I had ever heard "Taurus," which was recorded by the American rock group called Spirit in 1967. It was composed by Spirit guitarist Randy California, who died in 1997. His estate filed the copyright suit in 2014.
The Wikipedia story (click) of the copyright suit is very interesting.

Here's a recording of "Taurus":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8lFJWNgowo

I like it very much, but it's quite different from "Stairway," but there is a guitar riff in both pieces that sounds like climbing stairs.

Here's "Stairway to Heaven" (1971, by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant), which has always been one of my favorite songs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkF3oxziUI4

Here's a video comparing the two:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deVNnnuf24w

There's an article in Rolling Stone about the controversy:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/led-zeppelin-stairway-to-heaven-appeal-retrial-889336/

Subject: RE: Origins: Stairway to heaven
From: GUEST,Cnd
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 07:38 PM

Zeppelin was infamous for drawing inspiration (among other things) from early blues artists. They got sued for Bring It On Home (by way of Sonny Boy Williamson) but people have devoted a great deal of studying trying to find just how many people they ripped off

Subject: RE: Origins: Stairway to heaven
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Mar 20 - 07:55 PM

We have an old thread titled Led Zeppelin's Sources that covers all those old blues songs that Led Zeppelin introduced our generation to. I'm not so sure the blame should be placed on Led Zeppelin - those terrific songs would be lost without the attention given them by Lez Zeppelin, Cream, and others. But there's something terribly wrong with the business end of music and how it allocates royalties and attributions.
I did much of the copyright work for the "Blues" chapter of the Rise Again Songbook. We did our best to make sure royalties get paid to the correct people - but it was an impossible task.

-Joe-