The daily Astorian., June 17, 2016, WEEKEND EDITION, Page 4C, Image 22

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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 2016
PARTING SHOT FROM DANNY MILLER
A weekly snapshot from The Daily Astorian and Chinook Observer photographers
Vernon Hall, an Astoria resident of 20 years, rides his bike on the Astoria Riverwalk with his cat, Princess, on his shoulders in June. Princess is a rescue cat.
ODDITY
Song remains
the same
Led Zeppelin leaders face
questions over ‘Stairway’
By BRIAN MELLEY
Associated Press
L
OS ANGELES — The stage was a fed-
eral courtroom. The band was Led Zep-
pelin. And the song was one of rock’s
best-known anthems.
The men credited with writing “Stairway to
Heaven” were aging rockers wearing gray suits
and white dress shirts, their once-lowing curly
locks now shorter and pulled neatly to the back
of their heads.
Singer Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page
weren’t performing Tuesday in Los Angeles fed-
eral court, just listening quietly, along with a judge
and eight jurors who will decide whether the open-
ing of the 1971 ballad was lifted from a little-known
instrumental tune written a few years earlier.
A lawyer for the estate of the late Randy
Wolfe, also known as Randy California, claimed
in opening statements that the British rockers
lifted the passage from the instrumental tune
“Taurus,” recorded by Wolfe’s band Spirit, and
infringed on the copyright.
“This was a song that Randy California had
written for the love of his life, Robin. That was
her sign, Taurus,” said attorney Francis Maloiy.
“Little did anyone know it would fall into the
hands of Jimmy Page and become the intro to
‘Stairway to Heaven.”’
An attorney for Page and Plant said the two
did not steal the tune and hadn’t heard “Taurus”
until decades after it was recorded.
“Forty ive years ago, Jimmy Page and Rob-
ert Plant wrote some of the best songs in rock
‘n’ roll history,” said attorney Peter Anderson,
who claimed Wolfe’s estate doesn’t even own
the copyright to “Taurus.” “‘Stairway to Heaven’
was written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant,
and them alone.”
Opening two minutes
At question is whether the opening two min-
utes played on guitar is substantially similar to
Wolfe’s work a lesser-known song from a band
that had several albums on Billboard’s Top 200
record chart in the 1960s and `70s.
U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner ruled in
April that evidence presented in hearings made
AP Photo/Rusty Kennedy
Singer Robert Plant, left, and guitarist Jimmy Page of the British rock band Led Zeppelin perform at the Live Aid concert at Philadel-
phia’s J.F.K. Stadium in 1985. Generations of aspiring guitarists have tried to copy the riff from Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” A
Los Angeles court will try to decide whether the members of Led Zeppelin themselves ripped off that riff. Page and Plant are named
as defendants in the lawsuit brought by the trustee of late guitarist Randy Wolfe from the band Spirit.
a credible case that Led Zeppelin may have
heard “Taurus” performed before their song was
created.
Both pieces are based on a descending chro-
matic chord sequence in A minor that was used
in other well-known pieces, such as “My Funny
Valentine,” said Joe Bennett, a forensic musicol-
ogist at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee.
“It’s a well-used musical device. We can say
with certainty that that chord sequence is not
original,” he said. “It wasn’t written originally in
1968” when “Taurus” was released.
The chord progression dates back as far as the
1600s and other similarities also exist, Anderson
said.
“Do re mi appears in both songs,” Anderson
said.
Out of tune
As the opening minutes of “Stairway to
Heaven” were played, Plant looked at the jury
and Page nodded his head to the tune. Anderson
then played a recording of a piano interpretation of
“Taurus” that had only a vague similarity.
Maloiy showed videos of guitar interpreta-
tions of both songs, which sounded more alike.
When played simultaneously, similarities and dif-
ferences were audible and could be seen in the in-
ger work.
Wolfe’s song formed the basis for the riff that
made the “Stairway to Heaven” instantly recog-
nizable, Maloiy said
Led Zeppelin opened for Spirit in their debut
U.S. show in December 1968 in Denver, Maloiy
said.
He said Led Zeppelin began its career by cov-
ering songs and would later change them stylisti-
cally in an effort to make them their own.
“Sometimes they crossed that bar, sometimes
they didn’t,” he said.
Settled
The band has settled several similar copyright
disputes over songs such as “Whole Lotta Love”
and “Dazed and Confused,” but the judge has
barred Maloiy from introducing evidence from
those cases.
“Stairway to Heaven” has generated hundreds
of millions of dollars over the years.
Wolfe drowned in 1997 saving his son in
Hawaii. His estate’s trustee, Michael Skidmore,
was able to sue the band, Warner Music Group
Corp., Atlantic Recording Corp. and others after
a 2014 change in the law allowed lawsuits for
continued copyright infringement, Maloiy said.
Page, Plant and bandmate John Paul Jones
are all expected to testify at the trial, though
Jones has been dismissed as a defendant in the
case.
Associated Press writer Robert Jablon contrib-
uted to this report.
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