I'm certainly no expert and I know very little of how music rights work but I've read a bunch of articles about Zep lifting music from other bands. It's not uncommon though, right? I hear songs all the time that sound like other songs so my guess is that there is a lot of cross pollination happening all the time.
I'm a songwriter and I personally don't think the Spirit songs are an infringement only because the chord progressions are too common and didn't copy the lyrics AFAIK.
But... listen to this s__t!!! It's a blatant Zeplin rip off from one of Page's opening acts which I always thought was particularly heinous:
I'm a songwriter and I personally don't think the Spirit songs are an infringement only because the chord progressions are too common and didn't copy the lyrics AFAIK.
But... listen to this s__t!!! It's a blatant Zeplin rip off from one of Page's opening acts which I always thought was particularly heinous:
Wow. Now that is a rip. Never heard of em. Gonna check this guy out.
I just Googled and read about this. Apparently Jake Holmes was the opening act for the Yardbirds and played this song, then later Zeppelin recorded it and gave no credit to Holmes. What's interesting is that Plant actually sings it like Jake, so in a sense part of plant's singing style came from Holmes. They did change some words but they kept the same title!!! Shame, shame.
Wow you're right, Plant does cop the same singing style as Jake. I know bands copy stuff all the time but this is unmistakable. I hope Jake got some compensation for that somehow.