Jimmy Page

[JOEL <jody@cgia.state.nc.us>]

kirkh@indirect.com (Kirk Hawley) wrote:

>Looking at the writers' credits for "Bring It On Home" on LZ2 and then         >listening to Sonny Boy Williamson's recording should tell you something about  >Page's credibility.

AMEN!

How many times have I thought the same thought????......
There are an amazing number of Zep tunes which Page and Plant so conveniently
took credit for, that it makes me SICK. It's almost as if they were 
thinking ..'Those old black men are either dead, or, if nothing else,
they're half way around the globe - they'll never know'..  The funny part is
that at the time they were doing this (most notably on the first few albums),
they probably had *no* idea of how BIG they were going to be one day.

And you can believe that Sonny Boy was just one of their sources....
Robert Johnson should have been given credit for a *lot* of the 'Lemon Song'.
There are Willie Dixon lines throughout those first few Zep albums.
I'm sure there are many more people that should have been given credit.

This had led me to refer to Robert Plant as Robert Plagurist, as of late.

That is always the winning point in *any* argument with a Led-Head who is
convinced that The Who takes a back seat to Zeppelin. Jimmy Page is a fantastic 
guitar player, and Plant is a gifted singer, but I'll bet all my chips that
Pete Townshend has more originality and talent in his little finger than the two
 of those combined.

In all fairness, though, I wouldn't put it past Peter Grant to have been the
one who saw that it was done... That crooked Bastard!

Also of note - I read an article in Guitar Player magazine a couple of years
ago that told the story of 'Babe I'm Gonna Leave You'....... That song was
actually written by a woman from the US back in the late 50's/early 60's.
As the story told... A young man came home from school one day and heard his
MOTHER playing 'Babe..'.  When he said,"Mom, I didn't know you knew any Led 
Zeppelin!!".  Her reply that it was one of her tunes forced him to pull out 
the album - where, to her astonishment there was HER song - same chords & 
lyrics!   Here's how it happened: Joan Baez was doing a tour of Europe in the
early 60's where she had been performing 'Babe'...  The Zep single of "Babe"
gave the credit (Trad. Arr. by J. Page), but by the time the album came out,
full credit had been taken.  It seems that Mr. Page was at that show and took
home more than just a ticket stub.   But here's the kicker - The woman who
originally wrote 'Babe', was ready to record it for her album - since she
found out about the popularity of the song. But ironically, the copyright
had expired (I believe they expire after 25 years), so in order to record 
HER song on HER album, she would have to pay J. Page royalties on one of
her own songs!!!! And as far as those royalties from the single and LZ1 go,
all she has is an expired copyright! Had she caught her mistake earlier,
you can believe that she would have retired early - as a sucessful songwriter!

That's alright, what comes around - goes around..............

-the mayor