Led Zepplin were thieves?

Post by **faceless** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 7:43 pm

https://classicrockcentral.com/classic_r ... &orderID=2

I'm sure this is possible, but it's certainly not going to stop me listening to their albums on occasion.

6ULDV8 · Post by **6ULDV8** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 12:24 pm

Don't see anything about Zep on that page?
Looked at the two available links, one is about a reunion & other is a Page interview....

Could ya' / would ya' maybe copy & paste the article or even screen shot it & post it m8... ????

Ohhhh, tried going to other pages (1-8) but only refreshes back to page one.

Post by **faceless** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 2:06 pm

I sorted the link - it seemed the embedding made it go wrong or something. It's still the same link...

SpursFan1902 · Post by **SpursFan1902** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 2:44 pm

I don't really think that there is anything that Zep could do to make me stop listening! Love 'em...I listen almost daily.

major.tom · Post by **major.tom** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 5:06 pm

You must've meant this page, right?

[web]https://www.classicrockcentral.com/class ... .cfm?TID=2[/web]

Post by **faceless** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 5:12 pm

well that's one of the pages - when I tried the first link just now it came up with the U2 page, then I refreshed and it went back to the Zepplin one, so I've no idea what's up with it.

The basic story is that apaprently the entire first album had only one original track - the rest being plagiarised and that there is a documentary to be made about it.

SpursFan1902 · Post by **SpursFan1902** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 5:54 pm

faceless wrote:well that's one of the pages - when I tried the first link just now it came up with the U2 page, then I refreshed and it went back to the Zepplin one, so I've no idea what's up with it.

The basic story is that apaprently the entire first album had only one original track - the rest being plagiarised and that there is a documentary to be made about it.

Yep, almost the whole of the first album (my least fav -- coincidence??) is stolen from old blues guys....

major.tom · Post by **major.tom** » Sun Jul 15, 2007 6:11 pm

It took me a while to find the article. It kept coming up as the U2 story...

Did Led Zeppelin steal the majority of their songs from other sources?

Over the years Led Zeppelin has been accused of borrowing music and lyrics from other artists, especially some of the greatest blues legends of all time.

Led Zeppelin has been taken to court over the matter on numerous occasions. Several of the cases are yet to be resolved.

Background of the case and issues:

Led Zeppelin rose out of the demise of the English blues/rock band the Yardbirds. The band is best known for the fact that Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page were all members at one time or another.

The other members were singer Keith Relf, bassist Paul Samwell-Smith, rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja and drummer Jim McCarty. The Yardbirds best known songs include For Your Love, Train Kept A-Rollin', Shapes of Things, I’m a Man, Heart Full Of Soul and Over, Under, Sideways, Down.

Jimmy Page joined the Yardbirds in 1966 originally to play bass guitar after the original bassist, Paul Samwell-Smith, left the group. Dreja later switched to bass and Page became the second lead guitar with Jeff Beck. Beck eventually left to form the Jeff Beck Group and Page remained and became the group focal point till they disbanded in 1968.

Led Zeppelin was formed in 1968 and consisted of Jimmy Page, Robert Plant John Paul Jones and John Bonham. The group's self-titled debut album was released on January 13, 1969 and received generally positive reviews. The first indication of potential song stealing was cited by John Mendelsohn in his Rolling Stone Magazine review of Led Zeppelin. Mendelsohn cited the band for stealing Black Mountain Side from Bert Jansch's Black Water Side and nicking the riff from Your Time Is Gonna Come from the Traffic classic Dear Mr. Fantasy.

In this preview episode of the show Cold Cases of Rock and Roll will focus on the first album, Led Zeppelin. The following is a song by song analysis of the debut album.

I mostly listened to Zeppelin IV. But now that you mention the blues, the song "Rock & Roll" sure sounds blues-like.

alan1254 · Post by **alan1254** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 3:05 am

i think thats 'poetic licence' not theft

SpursFan1902 · Post by **SpursFan1902** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 3:35 am

alan1254 wrote:i think thats 'poetic licence' not theft

My understanding was that some of the riffs and some of the phrases ("...squeeze my lemon til the juice runs down my leg" is the first one that springs to mind. I have heard the original of this and it is not quite the same as when Robert sings it!) are lifted verbatim. It doesn't really matter to me as they really have never tried to hide it. How can you hide taking whole lines from other people's songs? I always interpreted it as a tribute kind of thing. That was much more popular at that time. People were not as worried about getting paid...especially those old blues guys.

Marcella-FL · Post by **Marcella-FL** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 3:45 am

I always assumed it was common knowledge that they were basically cover "jams". I am familiar with the original songs and assumed they recordeed them because they liked the songs. The only problem I have is if they did not credit the original writers of the songs but claimed it for themselves.

It still won't keep me from listening to "dancing days" when I want to get some action from hubby ... Sorry Spursfan ... I should have told you to cover your eyes ...

SpursFan1902 · Post by **SpursFan1902** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 3:50 am

Marcella-FL wrote: It still won't keep me from listening to "dancing days" when I want to get some action from hubby ... Sorry Spursfan ... I should have told you to cover your eyes ...

I should have gone to bed when I said I was going to....

6ULDV8 · Post by **6ULDV8** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 11:56 am

Hmmmm...

We don't see the Beatles, The Who & The Rolling Stones accused of this, yet all three bands (Perhaps the 3 most with success too) all made a lot of money from playing other peoples music & often not even giving any credit to the original writers etc...

There was a huge influx of Blues in to UK music during the 60's from the USA, just as there was a whole lot of rock & soul / RnB...
But very few of the US recordings made it, only the music / lyrics, hardly a sniff of US artists...
By the same stroke; UK music made it to the USA & a lot of it was performed by US musicians...
It's how it was done back then & nobody cared.

Right up to the death of Jerry Garcia, the "Greatful Dead", one of the largest touring bands in the world were pretty much just a rip-off cover band who jammed on tunes for 1/2 an hour at a time (often longer) & never gave credit to the originals... (this was right up to 1994/95) & Bill Wier from "GD" still does it to this day (he played localy last Wednesday night)...

I won't go into personal connections with Page / Plant etc... but I can assure you that the whole band was tallented enough to have made it with their own music from day one...

Page used to bunk out of school to play in "Big Bands" (swing / jazz bands along the lines of 20 piece orchestras) with a friend of mine "Troy" who used to play drums with him...
Page had great talent & didn't need to rely on others works, but again, as I said above, it's what was happening in the UK back then...

If it wasn't for all these bands 'finding the blues' & playing some of the music that had influenced them... well, the face of music in the UK, perhaps worldwide would look very different indeed.

alan1254 · Post by **alan1254** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 12:09 pm

6ULDV8 wrote:Hmmmm...

We don't see the Beatles, The Who & The Rolling Stones accused of this, yet all three bands (Perhaps the 3 most with success too) all made a lot of money from playing other peoples music & often not even giving any credit to the original writers etc...

There was a huge influx of Blues in to UK music during the 60's from the USA, just as there was a whole lot of rock & soul / RnB...
But very few of the US recordings made it, only the music / lyrics, hardly a sniff of US artists...
By the same stroke; UK music made it to the USA & a lot of it was performed by US musicians...
It's how it was done back then & nobody cared.

Right up to the death of Jerry Garcia, the "Greatful Dead", one of the largest touring bands in the world were pretty much just a rip-off cover band who jammed on tunes for 1/2 an hour at a time (often longer) & never gave credit to the originals... (this was right up to 1994/95) & Bill Wier from "GD" still does it to this day (he played localy last Wednesday night)...

I won't go into personal connections with Page / Plant etc... but I can assure you that the whole band was tallented enough to have made it with their own music from day one...

Page used to bunk out of school to play in "Big Bands" (swing / jazz bands along the lines of 20 piece orchestras) with a friend of mine "Troy" who used to play drums with him...
Page had great talent & didn't need to rely on others works, but again, as I said above, it's what was happening in the UK back then...

If it wasn't for all these bands 'finding the blues' & playing some of the music that had influenced them... well, the face of music in the UK, perhaps worldwide would look very different indeed.

thats all true especialy about the 60s mega groups, but of course they ripped off old black blues musicians stuff which in the 60s just didnt count!

Post by **faceless** » Mon Jul 16, 2007 12:33 pm

Integrity is not a new concept - I've written lots of music myself and if I was conscious that it was a ripoff I'd simply not play it.