Did Jimmy Paige steal his stairway to Heaven ?

It’s no secret Led Zeppelin borrowed from blues and folk music, but did Jimmy steal the most iconic guitar tune of all time from a guy called Randy?

They have paid copyright infringement royalties to Whole Lotta Love , Babe I’m Gonna Leave You and Dazed and Confused.

Jimmy claims Stairway is his Baby, the song sold over 500 million album copies (It was never released as a single)
In 1971 he took himself off the grid to a cottage in Wales, fans of Zep know it was called Bron-Yr-Aur and it was here that Paige claims he created the bones of album IV including STH.

Problem is Randy California (from Hendrixs band) has long claimed he wrote the stairway guitar intro and released it in 1968. He is dead now, previously he just wanted writing credit, but now since his passing, his estate lawyers are out for a piece the Stairway to Heaven fortune...

A guitar line in "Taurus" sounds similar to the opening of "Stairway," and Andes says he believes "Stairway" writer Jimmy Page and other members of Led Zeppelin heard the song when the group opened for Spirit in Denver in December 1968.

Read more at www.philly.com...

you decide.

So the court will hear a case regarding a 43 year old case of possible copyright infringement.

Crazy world.

It's an A minor melody with a chromatically descending bass line. It falls symetrically on the fret board. I've just been fiddling around with a guitar and stumbled upon it. There is no case for plagiarism here.
I'll quote Picasso..."good artists copy, great artists steal."
And, by the way, in my opinion, Jimmy Page kicks ass.

a reply to: Elton


It maybe be old biut it makes more money still today than most modern hits.

Have a look here at earnings.

Publishing Royalties ESTIMATED TOTAL: $12 million

Master Recording Royalties ESTIMATED TOTAL: $550 million

Potential and Licensing Earnings stimated total: $100 million or more

upstart.bizjournals.com...

a reply to: skunkape23

I rate JP higher than most rockers, however, they DID perform with the band Taurus in 68 2 years before he said he wrote it. Too many coincidences?

As a guitarist, I've always noticed this stuff. If we wanna get persnickety, we could argue that Randy stole the idea from Johnny Rivers. There is a similar intro on River's song "Summer Rain". (Recorded in 1967 I believe)

a reply to: zazzafrazz

As a songwriter, copyright owner and fomer lead guitar teacher, after listening to to both I can only say: no. Randy California's song was extremely similar to "Stairway to Heaven", in that it was in a minor key with most...not ALL chords the same.

The one exception I think that makes the case against it being stolen was the progression to Page's ascends while the chords descend...and with the Spirit song, the chords had no ascending, but did descend like "Stairway" to a different chord adding one more I believe.

*(To the non-musicians here..."Stairway" went both down and up simultaneously...while the other went just down to a completely different chord in relation to Page's."

a reply to: zazzafrazz

It’s no secret Led Zeppelin borrowed from blues and folk music

Let me say it before someone else does.
Good artists borrow.....great artists steal.
Making something your own is not a bad thing...its art.

BTW congrats on getting married.

a reply to: ColeYounger

Wooooah now you have really messed with my head.

originally posted by: zazzafrazz
a reply to: skunkape23

I rate JP higher than most rockers, however, they DID perform with the band Taurus in 68 2 years before he said he wrote it. Too many coincidences?

One of the things I like about Page is he once said he'd stolen a riff or two. If the Kinks got royalties for stolen melodies, they'd probably be billionaires. (Ray Davies anyway)
It's sad that a bunch of slimy lawyers are getting involved.

Some trivia...Did you know Jimmy played guitar on Donovan's 1960's hit "Season of the Witch"?
Some of the coolest and eeriest guitar ever recorded.

Nah

From 1959:

a reply to: zazzafrazz

Excuse you, that guy named Randy is Randy California, one if the most revered guitarist in the music world. Spirit, unfortunately, are forgotten now, but they were one of the hottest L.A bands in the late 60's and early 70's.
Led Zeppelin of course were phenomenal, but Jimmy Page is notorious for ripping riffs off.
Spirit deserve what is due to them, but I'm not even sure how many surviving members there are.

originally posted by: skunkape23
It's an A minor melody with a chromatically descending bass line. It falls symetrically on the fret board. I've just been fiddling around with a guitar and stumbled upon it. There is no case for plagiarism here.
I'll quote Picasso..."good artists copy, great artists steal."
And, by the way, in my opinion, Jimmy Page kicks ass.

I was thinking along the same lines, as one cannot copyright a progression itself, so the similarities are not stealing imo. It is sort of like how I have written some songs that use identical or just similar progressions to other songs, and this is going to happen all the time. You could play hundreds of songs with 3 chords, and just because two sound similar does not mean someone ripped it off.

Now you want to talk about a band ripping stuff off, look at Metallica. I never felt writing songs was difficult, and I think that artists who steal, or "borrow" as they like to put it, are full of it and should be sued. Take Enter Sandman by Metallica. No case of coincidence there. Blatant ripoff. Yet these bands want to complain about people pirating their music? How ironic!!!

I am going to hire a lawyer and copyright 440 Hertz frequency. I discovered it on my own. Anyone else who strikes this frequency aloud on any musical instrument is ripping me off...and I will sue.

Evenin',

No offence intended...I love Zepplin as much as the next Hippie...but screw Page with an upside-down flaming pineapple.
He's a pedophile...end of story.
What gives?
He's talented so we all just forget that part do we?

www.rollingstone.com... led-zeppelin-19691231

www.cracked.com...

I'm disgusted.

-Peace-

Interesting that these songs have something else in common. movement in a direction.

Stairways, they travel up and down
Rain, falls down.
and a river, well it travels down as well.

the notes are a way to denote the movement.
and if music is a language, it seems all these guys were using a common phrase in that language.

This one is great... Andrew Lloyd Webber flat ripped off Pink Floyd

In interviews promoting Amused to Death, Waters claimed that Andrew Lloyd Webber had plagiarized the refrain ("riff") from Echoes for sections of the musical The Phantom of the Opera; nevertheless, he decided not to file a lawsuit regarding the matter.

He said: Yeah, the beginning of that bloody Phantom song is from Echoes. *DAAAA-da-da-da-da-da*. I couldn't believe it when I heard it. It's the same time signature—-it's 12/8—-and it's the same structure and it's the same notes and it's the same everything. Bastard. It probably is actionable. It really is! But I think that life's too long to bother with suing Andrew f#### Lloyd Webber.[10]

Wiki


...and no... Page didn't rip that off... all artists get inspiration from others, but inspiration and note for note copy are completely different things...

originally posted by: Eryiedes
Evenin',


He's a pedophile...end of story.

He's talented so we all just forget that part do we?

Interesting question, I did not know this story before, You are absolutely right. do we just forgive him because of talent?
Did the world forgive MJ?
Jerry Lee lewis married his 13 year old cousin....

Eww don't want to think about it.

Jimmy Page (and Led Zeppelin) has been accused of being a plagiarist on many an occasion.

www.furious.com...

Led Zeppelin has long had a reputation for taking music and lyrics from lesser known artists. Many times the songs were never credited to the rightful owners. Consequently, royalties lined the pockets of the millionaire British musicians. Further, their American heroes, often poor and black, never saw a dime from songs they had written before their heirs ever picked up an instrument. Led Zeppelin has been taken to court over the matter on numerous occasions. For an indepth study of Led Zeppelin's penchant for stealing others work, music fans must turn to Page's first band, the Yardbirds.

With the music to Whole Lotta Love, the issue was the lyrics. So technically it wasn't JP doing the stealing but Robert Plant. Blues musicians should get the credit they deserve in Led Zep and a lot of Rock and Roll. However, they (blues musicians,) were all passing down and stealing each other's licks from the beginning as well, so all the Rockers did was what the blues artists had been doing anyway. Unfortunately they (blues artists) did not make the money that they deserved to make in comparison however.

As far as this California cat and Stairway to Heaven... It's a device that is sometimes called CESH in jazz. On a stationary minor or major chord, the root moves down chromatically to the major sixth. It's been on hundreds of records before Spirit ever did it. Check out 80% of vamps on Latin jazz tunes and you'll hear a more syncopated version of it. It's also done in minor blues a lot as well, with the same rhythm that Spirit did it with. This is like calling copyright infringement because someone used the phrase, "In the beginning.."