Led Zeppelin: Classic Or Dud?

And I say that on the basis of zero knowledge of the guy or his life.

is there any way we could work the Beatles vs Stones, Pitchfork, and the ethics of filesharing into this discussion?

xp I've met him IRL. His daughter lives next door to one of my friends.

Guitar music's dead anyway, so why not?

not that it matters, but Holmes is successful in his own right, independent of Page's "ripoff"

He is. I certainly can't think of anyone else who influenced acts as diverse as Led Zeppelin, Frank Sinatra, Neil Young, Lena Horne, Harry Belefonte, and Cake.

If nothing else, he must have made a mint from royalties from writing the US Army "Be All You Can Be" jingle which has been used since the late '70s to this day. The Dr Pepper "Be a Pepper" jingle is a Randy Newman/Jake Holmes joint effort; that would have been an interesting collaboration on real songs.

god who cares, by the time Zep got through Dazed & Confused it was basically just a jumping off point for 30-minute improvs

― Force Boxman (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, December 5, 2012 1:24 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The guy who he ripped it off from cares, Im sure.

not that it matters, but Holmes is successful in his own right, independent of Page's "ripoff"

― Force Boxman (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, December 5, 2012 1:51 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Youre right, this is totally fucking irrelevant. These guys are a total fraud.

one more piece of the puzzle

is there any way we could work the Beatles vs Stones, Pitchfork, and the ethics of filesharing into this discussion?

How did he lose the plagiarism suit then?

― Ismael Klata, Wednesday, December 5, 2012 1:40 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Cuz he was going up against a guy from FUCKING LED ZEPPELIN, who could probably afford seriously fierce lawyers. Holmes was probably represented by a legal team of significantly less quality

I thought this was settled out-of-court, no?

I'm sure the "waited for 40 years to sue" thing figured into it

The case was dismissed with prejudice (meaning it can not be retried). Sometimes it means the parties reached a settlement out of court, not sure what happened here.

Waiting 40+ years to sue was not an issue, although it did prevent Holmes from collecting royalties from previous airplay. He became aware of the Zep version at least since 1969, two years after his own original record was issued. He didn't consider it a big deal at the time. Keep in mind back then it was an album track from the first and only album from a new, little-known band that had never had a hit, not the uber-classic it is today from one of the biggest rock bands ever.

> waiting 40+ years to sue was not an issue, although it did prevent Holmes from collecting royalties from previous airplay

sales too, not just airplay.

Thx for recommending the Page intvws book, ithappens! Amazon just got my $.

There is a rehearsal labeled "Jennings farm blues" which as I recall is a good quality electric version of "bron-yr-aur stomp"

Jake Holmes also came up with the "Gillette! The best! A man! Can Get!" jingle.

also encouraged us to see the softer side of Sears...

xp his first attempt was "Been shaved and confused for so long . . ." but, well.

then he had "Gillette! Jimmy Page is such a get"

If you've never heard it, here's a live early-1968 live recording of the Yardbirds playing "Dazed and Confused", still with the original Jake Holmes lyrics intact. Oddly enough, Zep's ASCAP submission for "Dazed" credits both Plant and Page as writers, but Plant was scrubbed from the credits (as he was for the entire first album) apparently because he was still under a songwriting contract for another label. I suspect the revamped lyrics are largely Percy's work, which would mean only the instrumental middle section was actually written by Jimmy Page. And that part was lifted from yet another Yardbirds tune, "Think About It", which had the identical guitar solo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58mQvW0ROag

So you're saying Zeppelin pioneered ... sampling! How ironic.

Did anyone just catch the Kennedy Center Honors on TV? The Foo Fighters turfed out right in front of Led Zeppelin. Then the Heart-Jason Bonham-gospel choir version of StH was so bad I had to leave the room. Led Zeppelin were clearly mortified, I could not watch. Kid Rock brought all three LZ members to their feet with joy....the whole thing was surreal.

Plant was clearly moved during "Stairway..." and Page seemed to be enjoying it. Foo Fighters were def. terrible.

The again I probably just never "got" the Foo Fighters.

I know a guy who is friends with Plant's girlfriend down in Austin. Says Plant is a super great guy. What did you think of Lenny Kravitz, Jay Vee?

I watched that. The musical performances were all uniformly cover-band competent, but holy fuck, Jack Black is a demon sent to earth to annihilate the very idea of entertainment. To quote Robert Plant, "Does anyone remember laughter?" Yeah, it died the moment Jack Black waddled to the podium.

I missed him thank god--he falls into the Ricky Gervais camp of the sight of his face makes me want to punch him

he overdoes it. I guess there are people who enjoy that...

Then the Heart-Jason Bonham-gospel choir version of StH was so bad I had to leave the room.

Ha, this was the only part I found tolerable. But when Jason Bonham is the swingingest drummer in the room, best to change rooms.

looool

Leftsetz was drooling about how wonderful it was, when it was merely cover band competent

It was such an unsuccessful reinvention of Stairway...in fact, I thought I saw a slight eye roll from Plant to Jones during one of the cut aways to them. I had such a fontasy that Joni would come out and do Going to California for them...LZ probably would have died of joy right there

Neil Young/James Taylor/Linda Ronstadt cover of Bron-Yr-Aur Stomp

Led Zeppelin were clearly mortified

ladies and gentlemen, the art of confirmation bias

hey underrated, i haven't seen my shrink in two weeks and just got done with the holiday, so please forgive me for telling you to go f- yourself!

mortally clarified

last night Letterman reran the Page/Plant/Jones interview, didn't see it at the time...it was kinda lol but mostly sad how much Dave just talked about the Kennedy Center ceremony (quoting Jack Black's spiel, going over who performed) but still a lot of fun just to see those guys doing a talk show together. JPJ a genuinely clever, funny guy!

Jones is the only one of them I'd want to interview.

jpj definitely seems like the sophisticated center.

He's a smart guy but Page is the sophisticate. Of the three, Page's musical output post-Zeppelin is by far the worst, but the guy's a genuine polymath — he spends more time doing favela rehabilitation in Brazil (he's spent millions on it), collecting rare manuscripts, and researching/preserving Victorian architecture (he's among a handful of William Burges experts)

xpost During Letterman when Dave brings up theat Stairway performance, Plant looks over at Paul Schaffer and rolls his eyes like "who farted?"

i kind of wonder if Page being the main architect of LZ made the mediocrity of his later work inevitable -- it's like everything he ever wanted to do was wrapped up in that band and executed beautifully, how can he ever top it? at least Plant seemed to have some musical interests/ambitions that weren't totally satisfied by Zep that left him some room to have an interesting solo career.

This is so OTM. I think for Page Zeppelin was the culmination of all the ideas he'd been piling up working for years as a session man and studio whiz.

If you think about it Plant never really had a chance to evolve on his own...he was like 18 or whatever when this big-shot from London swooped in and said "this is what we're doing"

OTM seconded. Everything Page did after Zep was an attempt to get another Zep happening: the Firm, Coverdale/Page, the Black Crowes dealie...

Page/Plant was the best of these, obviously, but man, if there was ever an ideal Bonham replacement, it was Michael Lee.

xpost During Letterman when Dave brings up theat Stairway performance, Plant looks over at Paul Schaffer and rolls his eyes like "who farted?"
― Hadrian VIII, Friday, December 28, 2012 9:46 AM (1 hour ago)

What were you saying again, underrated, you jerk!

yeah Page had had a full musicial career with varying degrees of satisfaction by the time he'd formed Led Zep -- Zep was like, i dunno, Page the former apprentice going into business for himself.
Creatively he let it all hang out, building on a lot of things that had been stewing for a while elsewhere, whereas like Hadrian says, Zep was really Plant's first gig.

apropos of nothing, I saw this on wiki. nothing should surprise me about Page anymore but O_O

"Battle of Evermore" was made up on the spot by Robert [Plant] and myself. I just picked up John Paul Jones's mandolin, never having played a mandolin before , and just wrote up the chords and the whole thing in one sitting.[3]

Gah! That's nuts! Ironically, I think Jones played the mandolin part in concert (at least, there was footage of him doing so during the Kennedy Center thing).

p sure he's a sorcerer

I'm sure I've seen a picture of Jones in concert with an acoustic triple-neck thing: guitar, twelve-string and mandolin.

http://cdn.c.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000Gk307fmF.EQ/s/650/650/John-Paul-Jones-03.jpg