"The bad news is that Dylan claims the composing credit for several songs that predate him, most conspicuously the blues classic 'Rollin' and Tumblin',' whose title, melody, chorus and opening verse he co-opts.Of course, the history of blues and folk was based on updating and reshaping weathered old songs, even after the introduction of recordings transformed both idioms from strictly oral traditions.When questioned how Dylan could take credit for a song first recorded in the late 1920s, Dylan's publicist responded that 'Rollin' and Tumblin'' is in the public domain. While this may be true, for Dylan to not give just due here is spurious. This lapse prevents 'Modern Times' from earning the four-star rating it otherwise so richly deserves."
Dylan's been doing this since his career began, of course, in the great folk tradition of borrowing bits and pieces of tunes and handing them down to a new generation. ("Blowin' in the Wind" came from "No More Auction Block," etc.)However there's clearly less tolerance for the practice today, with copywright issues under so much scrutiny. Personally, I think Dylan should have at least acknowledged the connection, even if the song is in the public domain. Led Zeppelin was criticized early in their career for their blatant refusal to credit the orginal composer of old blues songs. I don't see how this is any different.
Full story here:http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/features/20060824-9999-lz1w24dylan.html
― Jim M (jmcgaw), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:23 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jim M (jmcgaw), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:25 (seventeen years ago) link
How they got away with that for as long as they did, considering "You Need Love" by the Small Faces is almost exactly the same, gets me.
― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:30 (seventeen years ago) link
Dylan clearly loves this old music, and seemed to have no problem assigning the proper credit on 'Good as I Been to You' and 'World Gone Wrong.' What stopped him this time?
― Dan Heilman (The Deacon), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:34 (seventeen years ago) link
That's a whole 'nother thread, but yeah. Zeppelin was beyond brazen, and "Whole Lotta Love" isn't even the worst example. They simply took "Dazed and Confused," lock, stock, and barrel, from Jake Holmes, and dared him to do something about it. He never did.
― Dan Heilman (The Deacon), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:36 (seventeen years ago) link
― M. Agony Von Bontee (M. Agony Von Bontee), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alicia Titsovich (sexyDancer), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:55 (seventeen years ago) link
― p@reene (Pareene), Thursday, 24 August 2006 13:58 (seventeen years ago) link
― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 24 August 2006 14:01 (seventeen years ago) link
― Douglas (Douglas), Thursday, 24 August 2006 14:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 24 August 2006 14:23 (seventeen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 24 August 2006 14:43 (seventeen years ago) link
Allen: "So, do you do your own songs?"
Dylan: "Well, they're all mine now."
― M@tt He1geson: Real Name, No Gimmicks (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 24 August 2006 14:46 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jim M (jmcgaw), Thursday, 24 August 2006 14:49 (seventeen years ago) link
(Bob Dylan) = Give the money to the writer's publisher.
I guess..
― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 24 August 2006 14:49 (seventeen years ago) link
Yeah, probably. But doing so was good enough for Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Memphis Slim etc etc. Dylan is right in the tradition.
― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Thursday, 24 August 2006 15:40 (seventeen years ago) link
It wasn't worth the bother to him. He knew it would involve a long legal battle, and that the resources Zep had its disposal far outweighed any he could get. He's philosophical about it at this point; the fact that people who know better know he wrote it is enough for him.
― Dan Heilman (The Deacon), Thursday, 24 August 2006 15:41 (seventeen years ago) link
please
― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 24 August 2006 15:44 (seventeen years ago) link
― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 24 August 2006 15:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Thursday, 24 August 2006 15:46 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marmot (marmotwolof), Thursday, 24 August 2006 16:12 (seventeen years ago) link
― Mark (MarkR), Thursday, 24 August 2006 19:15 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alicia Titsovich (sexyDancer), Thursday, 24 August 2006 19:56 (seventeen years ago) link
― Eppy (Eppy), Thursday, 24 August 2006 20:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― Eppy (Eppy), Thursday, 24 August 2006 20:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 24 August 2006 21:55 (seventeen years ago) link
erm, i don't think the small faces is who led zep was ripping off here.
― fact checking cuz (fcc), Thursday, 24 August 2006 22:21 (seventeen years ago) link
This isn't remotely correct. "Rollin and Tumblin" already has umpteen composer registrations (check BMI's database) based on variations of the blues tune, whose original composer is likely lost to time. Dylan is just doing the same thing that's already been done over and over. The waters have been muddy since long before Muddy Waters.
― Roy Kasten (Roy Kasten), Friday, 25 August 2006 15:32 (seventeen years ago) link
-- fact checking cuz (factcheckingcu...) (webmail), Yesterday 11:21 PM. (later) (link)
I'd argue that they were. If 'ripping off' equals stealing a song and an arrangement, they certainly had. If the Small Faces had not recorded it, Led Zep would not have a song called "Whole Lotta Love".
― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 25 August 2006 15:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 25 August 2006 15:57 (seventeen years ago) link
― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Friday, 25 August 2006 20:42 (seventeen years ago) link
"Whole Lotta Love" opens Led Zeppelin II. As mentioned earlier, Steve Marriott and the Small Faces figure into the Led Zeppelin saga. That mod foursome were known for a killer live version of the Muddy Waters "You Need Love." The following paragraph is from "Small Faces: The Young Mods' Forgotten Story" by Paolo Hewitt (1995, Acid Jazz Books).
'A few years later, one of the LP's outstanding tracks, the Marriott/Lane 'You Need Loving,' cropped up again to create rock history, albeit in a different format. '"Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin was nicked off that album,' Marriott pointed out. 'Percy Plant was a big fan. He used to be at all The Small Faces gigs. We did a gig with The Yardbirds which he was at and Jimmy Page asked me what that number was we did. "'You Need Loving'," I said, "it's a Muddy Waters thing" which it really is, so they both knew it, and Percy used to come to the gigs whenever we played in Kidderminster or Stowbridge, where he came from. He was always saying he was going to get this group together. He was another nuisance. He kept coming into the dressing room, just another little Mod kid. We used to say, "That kid's here again." Anyway we used to play this number and it became a stock opener after that album. After we broke up they took it and revamped it. Good luck to them. It was only old Percy who'd had his eyes on it. He sang it the same, phrased it the same, even the stops at the end were the same, they just put a different rhythm to it.' He laughs. 'For years and years I would hear it come on the radio while driving in America, and I would think, "Go on, my son," until one day I thought, "Fucking hell, that's us, that is. The bastards!"'
"Whole Lotta Love" is obviously, as Steve Marriott pointed, a direct nick of the Small Faces take on "You Need Love." The lyrics are basically the same as the Muddy Waters version. Further, Robert Plant's vocal stylings are indeed modeled directly on Marriott's delivery. One listen to the Small Faces version will lay any doubt aside. Unfortunately, the Small Faces songwriting credits made no mention of Willie Dixon. Of course, neither did Led Zeppelin.
Interestingly enough, Willie Dixon's own daughter, Shirley, brought it to her father's attention. As reported in the October 8, 1994's edition of The Los Angeles Times by Steve Hochman, Shirley Dixon first heard Led Zeppelin's version when she was thirteen. She played it for her father, who agreed it was his song. Willie Dixon was receiving no royalties from it. In 1985, Dixon sued Led Zeppelin for royalties to "Whole Lotta Love." The case was settled out of court two years later, with a generous settlement to Willie Dixon. Today, Shirley Dixon heads the Blues Heaven Foundation (established by her father), which helps blues artists recover their royalties and rights.
what amazes me is that nobody bothered to play that song for willie dixon until 1985.
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 25 August 2006 21:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Friday, 25 August 2006 21:48 (seventeen years ago) link
I don't want to upset you but... the music business ain't all that honest.
Really...
Thanks for the Zep-Faces anecdote. Truely cool factoids. Somewhere I have an old Rolling Stone wherein they mention in the Random Notes section that the Yardbirds were changing their name to Led Zep.
As long as we're sharing, what about the one where Ry Cooder claimed that the Stones ran tape of him messing around in the studio and ripped off his licks for most of Let It Bleed?
― factcheckr (factcheckr), Friday, 25 August 2006 23:20 (seventeen years ago) link
who is this factcheckr person?
― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 25 August 2006 23:26 (seventeen years ago) link
― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 25 August 2006 23:29 (seventeen years ago) link
― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Friday, 25 August 2006 23:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Saturday, 26 August 2006 00:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Saturday, 26 August 2006 01:01 (seventeen years ago) link
― Telephonething (Telephonething), Saturday, 26 August 2006 03:35 (seventeen years ago) link
― Bass-man (bassguy), Saturday, 26 August 2006 19:58 (seventeen years ago) link
― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Saturday, 26 August 2006 20:27 (seventeen years ago) link
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Saturday, 26 August 2006 21:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Saturday, 26 August 2006 21:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Saturday, 26 August 2006 21:10 (seventeen years ago) link
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Saturday, 26 August 2006 21:11 (seventeen years ago) link
― Bass-man (bassguy), Saturday, 26 August 2006 21:12 (seventeen years ago) link
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Saturday, 26 August 2006 21:14 (seventeen years ago) link
I guess some challenge was made based on lack of DNA evidence, but no one is sure where Johnson is bureid, so that was tossed.
― Bass-man (bassguy), Saturday, 26 August 2006 21:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― Bass-man (bassguy), Saturday, 26 August 2006 21:23 (seventeen years ago) link
― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Sunday, 27 August 2006 00:16 (seventeen years ago) link
― Bass-man (bassguy), Sunday, 27 August 2006 01:46 (seventeen years ago) link
This actually goes back to the heart of the original question: who wrote the song, and who got paid for it?
And to the points above:
A - "bluesmen" were ripping each other of for years before the English white boys came around to really cash in, and
B - How clued were Dylan, Clapton, Page, et al regarding the mechanics of copyrights, how old were they, how powerful was their management, and even who owned their publishing? Publishing companies and artist management is very powerful in these situations and it's more than possible that these guys had no say in it whatsoever.
Or it could be that they were pricks, and only too happy to rip off their heroes.
And to my fact checking cuz... what''s in a name anyway?
― factcheckr (factcheckr), Sunday, 27 August 2006 10:47 (seventeen years ago) link
I don't have a copy of Let It Bleed (anymore...) but the Ry Cooder geek sites seem to indicate that he played on Beggar's Banquet (uncredited: mandolin), Let It Bleed (credit: mandolin) and Sticky Fingers (credit: guitar on Sister Morphine). The common story (uncertain how accurate, if at all) is that he was messing aroudn with open tunings and showed Keith how ot use them (which he certain did after, not sure before -- guitar geeks out there???) The story continues that he either played the intro to Honky Tonk Women on recrod or that he did it in the studio just messing around and the lads nicked it.... in the fine tradition noted above...
― Bass-man (bassguy), Sunday, 27 August 2006 12:21 (seventeen years ago) link
― Lynco (lync0), Sunday, 27 August 2006 16:25 (seventeen years ago) link
I first listened to McTell a couple years back when I heard Dylan's "Willie McTell," which has the same tune as "St. James Infirmary Blues."
Anyway, did David Johansen give Dylan an "arrangement" credit on his Harry Smiths version of "Delia," which was Dylan's combination of McTell's "Delia" and Reverend Gary Davis' "All the Friends I Ever Had Are Gone" from World Gone Wrong?
to sum up: thieves, all of 'em.
― p@reene (Pareene), Sunday, 27 August 2006 18:54 (seventeen years ago) link
dunno 'bout dylan and page, but cream (more jack bruce than clapton, it would seem) actually went to some lengths to make sure the correct people were credited and actually received royalties. they had personal contact with skip james and saw to it that he got $ from "i'm so glad." skip saw them play the song shortly before his death, and his widow sent a letter of gratitude to jack bruce.
― Lawrence the Looter (Lawrence the Looter), Sunday, 27 August 2006 19:53 (seventeen years ago) link
― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Sunday, 27 August 2006 21:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― Bass-man (bassguy), Sunday, 27 August 2006 23:39 (seventeen years ago) link