Led Zeppelin STOLE Stairway to Heaven

[Mooshashi]

From the Daily Mail


Led Zeppelin STOLE Stairway To Heaven from us, claim band who toured with them three years before hit song was released
U.S. band Spirit claim Stairway's opening riff was taken from their song

They say Led Zeppelin heard it when they toured together in the 60s
Taurus was released in 1968 and was a main part of their live sets
Stairway To Heaven came out in 1971 and propelled Led Zeppelin to stardom

Led Zeppelin could be sued over claims they stole the opening riff of Stairway To Heaven, their most famous song.

A band called Spirit are attempting to block the track's re-release after claiming their late guitarist Randy California should be given a writing credit on the 1971 track.

They and others say Stairway's famous picked guitar riff, written by Jimmy Page, closely resembles the guitar part on their 1968 song Taurus.


Spirit bassist Mark Andes reckons Led Zeppelin would have heard the song when the two bands were on tour together in the late 1960s - which they then copied for their smash hit song.

He told Bloomberg Businessweek: 'It would typically come after a big forceful number and always got a good response. They would have seen it in that context.

'It is fairly blatant, and note for note. It would just be nice if the Led Zeppelin guys gave Randy a little nod. That would be lovely.'

[Mooshashi]

From Business Week

Weary from touring, Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page retreated in 1970 to a stone cottage in Wales, called Bron-Yr-Aur, with no power or running water. Legend has it King Arthur fought his last battle nearby. Not far off is the mountain Cader Idris where, its said, those who spend a night at its summit are fated to die, go mad, or become poets. At Bron-Yr-Aur, by candlelight, Page constructed the bones of what may well be the most popular, and valuable, rock n roll song of all time, Stairway to Heaven. This included the introductory finger-picked section that launched a million guitar lessons.

Back in England that winter, Page laid out the budding epic for the band at another house, Headley Grange, where the magic continued around a fire fueled on one occasion by a section of stairway banister. As Page plucked, singer Robert Plant seemed to channel another world as he wrote the lyrics. To Page, who has referred to the song as my baby; it was Zeppelin crowning achievement. ;Stairway crystallized the essence of the band,***8221; he told then-teenage rock writer Cameron Crowe in a March 13, 1975, Rolling Stone interview.It was a milestone for us. Every musician wants to do something of lasting quality, something which will hold up for a long time, and I guess we did it with Stairway.

For generations of middle-class youth, the song is the 8-minute soundtrack of adolescent romance or at least the anticipation of it. Stairway is slow dancing, the last song played at high school proms, sweet-16 parties, and summer camp mixers across a broad swath of the late 20th century.

Stairways stature financially, culturally, and musicallyis towering. By 2008, when Conde Nast Portfolio magazine published an estimate that included royalties and record sales, the song had earned at least $562 million. It was so profitable in part because Led Zeppelin refused to release the song as a single, forcing fans to shell out for the entire album, which is untitled but known as Led Zeppelin IV. In the U.S., the album has sold more copies (23 million, according to the Recording Industry Association of America) than any save Michael Jacksons Thriller and the Eagles; Their Greatest Hits (1971-75). To this day, Warner Music Group cites the song in its annual reports as an example of its publishing portfolio.

For live audiences, Stairways power starts with its introductory notes. ;Can you think of another song, any song, for which, when its first chord is played, an entire audience of 20,000 rise spontaneously to their feet, not just to cheer or clap hands, but in acknowledgment of an event that is crucial for all of them? Observer critic Tony Palmer wrote in a 1975 profile. Dave Lewis writes in Led Zeppelin: The Complete Guide to Their Music that Stairway has a pastoral opening cadence that is classical in feel and which has ensured its immortality.

But what if those opening notes werent actually written by Jimmy Page or any member of Led Zeppelin? What if the foundation of the bands immortality had been lifted from another song by a relatively forgotten California band?

You;d need to rewrite the history of rock n roll.

In 1968 a Los Angeles area band called Spirit put out its first album, the self-titled Spirit. Among the songs was an instrumental piece, Taurus, written by the bands guitarist, Randy California. (Born Randy Wolfe, California got his stage name while playing with Jimi Hendrix;s band in New York in 1966. Hendrix took to calling him Randy California to distinguish him from another Randy in the band. California, only 15 at the time, chose to make it stick.) Taurus runs just 2 minutes and 37 seconds. About a minute of it is a plucked guitar line that sounds a lot like the opening measures of Stairway to Heaven.

For Led Zeppelin, 1968 was a big year. The band recorded its first album and flew to the U.S. to promote it with a series of shows. The day after Christmas, it played its first concert in America at the Denver Auditorium Arena. Led Zeppelin opened for Spirit.

Mark Andes, Spirits founding bassist, says he believes the members of Led Zeppelin heard Taurus that day, beginning a process that would lead to its appropriation for Stairway. Taurus was a fixture of Spirit set at the time. It was such a pretty moment, and it would typically come after a big forceful number and always got a good response; Andes says at his home in a Houston suburb, where his music room is lined with framed gold records, many from the decade he later spent with the band Heart. They would have seen it in that context

[Robbie Barrett]

[Mooshashi]

Spirit was one of my favorite bands back in the day; saw them at the Fillmore East.
Randy California threw a fit and walked offstage; the rest of the band had to beg him to return as the crowd booed like hell.

[Mooshashi]

This is similar to when George Harrison was sued by the writers of "He's So Fine" because of a similar chord progression to "My Sweet Lord". Harrison LOST the case.

[Ragnar Lothbrok]

most british musicians steal from american musicians.

this is common knowledge.

[Mooshashi]

all I hear is a few opening chords that are similar to the opening of Stairway...maybe 5% of the entire song. And the progression of the chords is not all that unique IMO.

If the descendants of Randy California are going to sue, will they take into consideration the very small piece of the song that sounds familiar? I doubt the lawyers will take anything less than 100%!

[sweetpea87]

I saw a video on youtube about Zeppelin's whole first album being basically stolen from multiple songs from a bunch of different old blues musicians. They put the songs together and they really were basically note for note to where it could have easily been plagiarism. For this, the first couple notes of "Taurus" sound like Stariway, but other than that it's not the same.

But speaking of Spirit, their album "The Twelve Dream Of Dr. Sardonicus" was a masterpiece and one of my favorite albums ever.

[WarriorSoul]

Who's that girl in your avy?

[AntonTheMeh]

this is so old when it was first brought up mick jagger was still only a dad. (he's a great grand dad now)