Posted on 07/01/2010 12:00:52 PM PDT by a fool in paradise
...In documents filed on Monday, Holmes cited a 1967 copyright registration for Dazed and Confused, renewed in 1995. That song... was released in 1967 on the San Francisco-born musician's debut album.
...the path that leads from Holmes to Page is very well known. As documented by Perfect Sound Forever magazine, Holmes opened for Page's then-band, the Yardbirds, at a Greenwich Village gig in August 1967. "That was the infamous moment of my life when Dazed and Confused fell into the loving arms and hands of Jimmy Page," Holmes recalled in an interview with Will Shade. Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty described going to a record shop the next day to buy a copy of Holmes's album. "We decided to do a version," he said. "We worked it out together with Jimmy contributing the guitar riffs in the middle."
...Page is credited as the track's sole songwriter. In 1990, Musician magazine quizzed Page on the subject, asking if Holmes was the original composer. "I don't know about all that," Page replied. "I'd rather not get into it because I don't know all the circumstances. What's he got – the riff or whatever? ... I haven't heard Jake Holmes so I don't know what it's all about anyway. Usually my riffs are pretty damn original."
It's not clear why Holmes has waited more than 40 years to file a plagiarism suit. Due to a statute of limitations, the 70-year-old can only claim royalties and damages for the past three years; and so he's doing just that, seeking actual damages, three years of song profits and statutory damages of $150,000 (£99,000) per infringement. As the track appears on everything from Led Zeppelin's debut to their BBC Sessions, as well as DVDs and compilations, that's no small sum. Enough, certainly, to fund a late retirement...
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
It’s one thing to cover ;killin’ floor’ and credit Howlin Wolf, it’s something else to change a few lyrics, call it ‘The Lemon Song’ and claim you wrote it.
ZZ Top has covered many Willie Dixon songs, but the credit him, Zep took ‘you Need love’ changed it a bit and called it their own.
Not to detract from Zep, or the fact that it was the great English musicians of the 60’s that FINALLY brought the attention and renumeration so long due to the American Delta and Chicago blues musicians.
I think they were sued for Whole Lotta Love by Willie Dixon.
Yeah, that’s the song all right. Looks as if JP just changed some words around and said yeah, it’s all mine.
Doesn't make it right, just sayin.
Jake Holmes, nice first try, I listened, maybe a royalty or two, however:
Zeppelin made it what it is!
Right, that’s the song. I used to be in a LZ cover band doing covers of their covers.
property right for music can be very ambiguous...there are some who claim Trampled Under Foot was stolen from stevie wonder’s superstition...
property right for music can be very ambiguous...there are some who claim Trampled Under Foot was stolen from stevie wonder’s superstition...
property right for music can be very ambiguous...there are some who claim Trampled Under Foot was stolen from stevie wonder’s superstition...
So if we followed your logic, a large corporation could steal my invention/idea and make millions off of it, but I wouldn’t be justified in going after them because they marketed and sold it in large numbers?
What a thief does with the property he takes is irrelevant.
So maybe that’s why they wouldn’t allow the song to be in the soundtrack of the movie DAZED AND CONFUSED. Page always said he didn’t care but the singer was supposedly the one who wouldn’t sign the release. Page was sorta’ like a republican voting “yes” when he knows his vote won’t matter.
Hey! That’s MY D chord ... I put an A and an E with it and have a three chord turnaround. ;o)
Their entire first album is a collection of covers.
I assumed most people were aware of this.
(I have most of the original blues versions also. Always thought it would be neat to do a compilation of the originals in the same order as Zep I.)
It isn’t that the song is a cover, it is not credited to the author.
And while Page in the citation steers the discussion to riffs, the lyrics and title are the basis of the suit.
The drum beat from the intro to Little Richard’s “Keep a knockin” was used to lead into “Rock and Roll”. But that’s just a section of something (and Keep a knockin” wasn’t even Richard’s song, it’d been recorded by Louis Jordan in the 1940s and dated all the way back to the 1920s).
A WTF Metal Ping!
I just always assumed that all those old blues numbers they “electrified” were older than dirt and in the public domain.
Claiming credit for writing them is quite different.
I heard that some of the songs that Alan Lomax transcribed in his travels he gave credit to this or that singer so that person could get some money (even if Alan knew otherwise). Not so much taking someone’s song from somebody else as taking a “traditional/unknown” as ascribing an author.
It would work as a theme song for the disengaged and disoriented chief executive.
Dazed and Confused
Dazed and Confused
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.