# Led Zeppelin - shameless copiers so it seems **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 27, 2007, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636 "2007-06-27T13:58:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636/21 "2007-06-27T17:10:09Z")
[QUOTE=Wee Bairn] [Here’s](http://www.furious.com/PERFECT/yardbirds2.html) a good site with details of all of of their theivery. [/quote] I don’t buy some of the accusations leveled on that site. For example, it says: > [@](#): > > A rewrite of Eddie Cochran’s rockabilly classic “Nervous Breakdown” appeared on Led Zeppelin’s first album. Entitled “Communication Breakdown,” this interpretation made no mention of Cochran, being credited to Bonham/Jones/Page. [Here’s Nervous Breakdown.](http://youtube.com/watch?v=CJn984u4hos) If I wrote Communication Breakdown, I wouldn’t have credited Eddie Cochran, either. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636/22 "2007-06-27T17:22:46Z")
[QUOTE=spazurek] “Good artists copy; great artists steal.” - Pablo Picasso [/QUOTE] This is at the heart of the issue. Do you consider LZ to be artists who used inputs - even more or less doing a cover - to challenge new boundaries in their medium? Or were they simple hacks, basically the equivalent of Pat Boone covering Little Richard because the audience was more open to hearing a Pat Boone singing the song? IMHO - LZ blew whole new doors open - other bands like Cream, the Jeff Beck Group and Black Sabbath were exploring heavier blues-rock, too, but Zep’s work changed how everyone thought about rock and roll - and the blues. I am open to arguing about the pettiness of LZ not crediting influences sufficiently - okay, smack their wrists, get 'em to pay and move on. To me this is like hearing that Mickey Mantle drank and played hungover, JFK womanized or Picasso ripped off Braque or Matisse and took on new lovers as muses but treated them horribly and threw them aside - okay, got it - in some of their personal or business dealings, they weren’t great people. But you can’t argue with the overall performance. If you like LZ and think they their music and influence put them in the pantheon with the likes of the Beatles, The Stones, Hendrix, etc. - then accept that, warts and all. If you don’t think they are that great, then this type of info just reinforces an existing POV. But focus on the work. And in their case, it is an amazing body of work. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636/23 "2007-06-27T17:27:04Z")
[QUOTE=BwanaBob] If you like Stephen King and suppose we discover that all his plotlines were stolen, would you still stick with him saying “well he’s still a great storyteller” ? [/QUOTE] How about Shakespeare? Most of his story lines aren’t original; does that diminish his genius? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636/24 "2007-06-27T17:32:51Z")
[QUOTE=Telemark] How about Shakespeare? Most of his story lines aren’t original; does that diminish his genius? [/QUOTE] If you thought the best thing about Shakespeare was the stories he came up with, then it probably does- but I don’t think anybody does that, and I’m not aware of Shakespeare taking credit for works that weren’t his (as opposed to using older story ideas, which his contemporaries did too). ---
**Author:** ![spazurek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b2d939/32.png) [@spazurek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spazurek)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636/25 "2007-06-27T17:41:54Z")
[QUOTE=Marley23] If you thought the best thing about Shakespeare was the stories he came up with, then it probably does- but I don’t think anybody does that, and I’m not aware of Shakespeare taking credit for works that weren’t his (as opposed to using older story ideas, which his contemporaries did too). [/QUOTE] Well I don’t think the best thing about LZ are the basic structure of their tunes. It’s the way they arrange it, the sonic textures, and most of all Jimmy Page’s exquisite musicality – in other words, as with Shakespeare, the execution. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636/26 "2007-06-27T18:02:25Z")
[QUOTE=spazurek] Well I don’t think the best thing about LZ are the basic structure of their tunes. It’s the way they arrange it, the sonic textures, and most of all Jimmy Page’s exquisite musicality – in other words, as with Shakespeare, the execution. [/QUOTE] Even if they were the greatest cover band ever (and it seems like they were), they were still presented to the public, for pretty much their entire career, as an original band. This might not matter to you, but it made a huge difference at the time. They owed their success to saying that these songs were all theirs, which Shakespeare did not. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636/27 "2007-06-27T18:04:42Z")
Here’s a good link where you can listen to some clips of what Zep stole/copied from. ---
**Author:** ![rackensack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rackensack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rackensack)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636/28 "2007-06-27T18:05:23Z")
[QUOTE=pulykamell] I don’t buy some of the accusations leveled on that site. For example, it says: [Here’s Nervous Breakdown.](http://youtube.com/watch?v=CJn984u4hos) If I wrote Communication Breakdown, I wouldn’t have credited Eddie Cochran, either. [/QUOTE] Or even [Mario Roccuzzo](http://www.allmusicguide.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:w9foxqwjldte~T3). [hijack] BTW, does anyone know if this is the same [Mario Roccuzzo](http://industrycentral.net/content/actors/roccuzzo.html) who’s been a constant presence in the background of TV cop shows for the last 40 years? The timing would fit – he’d have been in California in the late 1950s trying to break into acting, but nothing I’ve seen anywhere indicates that he he had a musical career as well.[/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636/29 "2007-06-27T18:28:28Z")
[QUOTE=saoirse] They owed their success to saying that these songs were all theirs, which Shakespeare did not. [/QUOTE] That’s way too nice to Shakespeare and not necessarily fair to LZ. Copyright laws were different, if any even existed, back in Will’s time. It was likely to be 100% obvious to most upper-class Brits that Romeo & Juliet was, in effect, a full re-telling of Pyramus and Thisbe. Checking [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_and_Juliet) - the number of sources for R&J is freakin’ HUGE: > [@](#): > > Romeo and Juliet is a dramatization of Arthur Brooke’s narrative poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet (1562). Shakespeare followed Brooke’s poem closely[1] but enriched its texture by adding extra detail to both major and minor characters, in particular the Nurse and Mercutio. Shakespeare also knew “The goodly History of the true and constant love of Rhomeo and Julietta”, a prose retelling of the story by William Painter.[2] > > Brooke’s poem was not original either, being a translation and adaptation of Giuletta e Romeo, by Matteo Bandello, included in his Novelle of 1554. This was in turn an adaptation of Luigi da Porto’s Giulietta e Romeo, included in his Istoria novellamente ritrovata di due Nobili Amanti (c. 1530).[3] This is the version that gave the story much of its modern form, including the names of the lovers, the rival families of Montecchi and Capuleti, and the location in Verona, in the Veneto. However, the earliest-known version of the tale is the 1476 story of Mariotto and Gianozza of Siena by Masuccio Salernitano, in Il Novellino (Novella XXXIII).[4] > > Bandello’s story was the most famous and was translated into French (and into English by Brooke). It was also adapted by Italian theatrical troupes, some of whom performed in London at the time that Shakespeare was writing his plays. Although nothing is known of the repertory of these itinerant troupes, it is possible that they performed a version of the story.[5] > > This story of ill-fated lovers had obvious parallels with similar tales told throughout history, including those of Hero and Leander, Pyramus and Thisbe, Floris and Blanchefleur, Troilus and Cressida, Antony and Cleopatra, Layla and Majnun, Tristan and Iseult, Shirin and Farhad and Hagbard and Signy. Shakespeare was familiar with these stories, some of which were included in his other plays. The tale of Pyramus and Thisbe appears in comic mode in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, while the Trojan War lovers, Troilus and Cressida, were given a history play of their own. Okay - so do you have a copy of Shakespeare’s draft that specifically cites Brooke’s poem? Was it used with permission? Did everyone seeing the play get educated “hey this is based on Greco-Roman mythology and more specifically from a poem I read”? Hardly. Look, if you think LZ are lying rip-off artists - more power to you. But you can’t change their place in music history, or the fact that they did _something_ to the songs they played that completely changed how people approached rock music at the time - and even through to today… ---
**Author:** ![RumMunkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@RumMunkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RumMunkey)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636/30 "2007-06-27T18:42:45Z")
[QUOTE=Biffy the Elephant Shrew] Also, their blues borrowings were not all “early” blues; they also ripped off contemporaries like Albert King and Willie Dixon. [/QUOTE] Sorry, you misunderstood me. I meant it’s well-known that Led Zeppelin ripped off a lot of material in THEIR early blues stuff (ie: Babe I’m Gonna Leave You, The Lemon Song, Whole Lotta Love, etc), but was surprised to discover that their later, more rock material (Stairway, etc.) may also borrowed / stolen. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636/31 "2007-06-27T18:44:03Z")
It’s not news that Led Zeppelin ripped off a shitload of stuff, mostly uncredited, and usually only paid the piper when forced to. I’m not happy about this, but they also did a lot of stuff that was quite their own. I like LZ’s sound, and I think they took a lot of the stuff they ripped off to new heights. On the balance, I give them a qualified pass, but I don’t feel good about it. It’s a difficult issue for me, but since I never revered them as godlike artistes anyway, meh. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636/32 "2007-06-27T18:57:51Z")
[QUOTE=WordMan] That’s etc etc etc etc etc… [/QUOTE] Um, yeah that was kind of my point. Led Zeppelin would never have been heard on the radio if they were a cover band, no matter how good they were at it. However, everyone knew that Shakespeare was borrowing plots. That’s what > [@](#): > > They owed their success to saying that these songs were all theirs, which Shakespeare did not. means. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636/33 "2007-06-27T19:03:06Z")
Back in 1933 [John Lomax](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lomax), travelling with his son [Alan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Lomax), came to Angola Prison where they found Huddie Ledbetter, serving a sentence for murder. Lomax & son were folklorists and musicologists, recording music for the Library of congress and they wanted the folkmusic to be as authentic as possible, which is why they searched prisons. Ledbetter was renamed Leadbelly and had to abqandon hope of being as good a musician as he really was. Ledbetter played seven instruments and liked to make covers of Gene Autrey songs and contemporary jazz numbers, but the Leadbelly Lomax took to New York to display (compare with King Kong) was forbidden to play violin or accordion, Only guitar and the simplest, most “authentic” songs were allowed. Ledbetter wanted fancy suits, but Lomax insisted he perform wearing his old prison uniform. It’s no surpise he flopped at the Apollo theatre - blacks weren’t interested, because this was what white people thought black music should sound like, raw and primitive: "as if I were listening to the tom-toms of savage blacks” to quote Lomax from notes he wrote in 1932. Listening to actual African music, (which black slaves were not allowed to play in the U.S. but it survived in Latin American countries and the Caribbean (sp?)) it’s quite easy to hear how sophisticated it is, with very complex rythms. So the most authentic form of American music - the blues - was created by whites for whites, It never was authentic in the first place. Led Zeppelin ripping off what essentially was fake can’t really get me upset. From [Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music](http://www.amazon.com/Faking-Quest-Authenticity-Popular-Music/dp/0393060780/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/104-1366713-6645558?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182970522&sr=1-2) by Hugh Barker and Yuval Taylor. ---
**Author:** ![Frustrated\_Wonderer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a4c791/32.png) [@Frustrated\_Wonderer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frustrated_Wonderer)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636/34 "2007-06-27T19:15:19Z")
Wow, BIG DEAL. Please, Led Zepplin made each of these songs a whole lotta better, if you know what I mean. Sure, some of the aspects of these songs, wether it be vocals and/or parts of riffs may be copied, I still think Zeppelin is awsome. If it bothers you that they copied parts of songs, just don’t listen to them anymore. Heck, in there defence, I’ll say that many of these blues bands would’nt have become very popular regardless of what Zeppelin did. Heck, it may even helped many of these bands gain more fame. ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636/35 "2007-06-27T19:17:27Z")
I think most people agree as long as they had given them all partial songwriting credits, everything would’ve been peachy. IIRC the only one of them ever giving a credit (and as a result $$$) was one Mrs. Valens. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636/36 "2007-06-27T19:22:16Z")
[QUOTE=saoirse] Um, yeah that was kind of my point. Led Zeppelin would never have been heard on the radio if they were a cover band, no matter how good they were at it. [/QUOTE] I can’t agree with this at all. Of course radio would have played them. Nobody at the time cared very much that songs were based on old blues tunes. There had been hundreds of them and most groups were slow to give the originators any credit. That was a later development. Zeppelin’s place in rock history would not have changed the tiniest bit, as you’ll see. And the question of what was “original” was far more open in those days. There were no good databases of music. You had to hunt through ASCAP and BMI to find publishers’ credits. “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You” is a perfect example. It wasn’t credited because they heard it on a Joan Baez album listed as a “traditional” song, liked it and adapted it. Even **pulykamell’s** excellent list has it credited to her. But she didn’t write it, nor is it a traditional folk song. Anne Bredon wrote it. It was part of the consensus playlist in New York City’s rising folk scene in the early 60s. Other people had recorded it before Baez did, but folk albums of that era were obscure even in the 60s. If a songwriter was so obscure that Baez didn’t know the original in 1962, adapting blues songs whose originators were obscure or unknown then and still contentious today after decades of research was not seen as any sin by 1969. It was an issue only to a few reviewers and purists. [For example](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led_Zeppelin): > [@](#): > > While the album received generally positive reviews, some derided it, most famously John Mendelsohn of Rolling Stone magazine, who savaged the band for stealing music, notably “Black Mountain Side” from Bert Jansch’s “Black Water Side” and the riff from “Your Time Is Gonna Come” from Traffic’s “Dear Mr. Fantasy”. He also accused the band of mimicking black artists, and showing off. This marked the beginning of a long rift between the band and the magazine, with Led Zeppelin rejecting later requests for interviews and cover stories as their level of success escalated. So the “rip-offs” were known from the very instant the album was released. It didn’t matter to radio, to concert-goers, or album-buyers. There’s no need to rewrite history. The accusations were always there. We feel different today about lots of stuff that was taken for granted, ignored, insulted, or untalked about in the 60s. The real question is whether any steps have been made to change those attitudes. In the case of Zeppelin, the answer is mostly yes. Anne Bredon has been given a co-writer credit on “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You” since 1990. Co-writer is fair, because while I’ve never heard her version, I’ve heard some of the early folk recordings of it and the song is hardly recognizable except for the words. This practice did get Zeppelin sued over the years. But they’re hardly alone. Countless lawsuits have been brought, with the settlements almost always going in favor of the originators. It’s not a pretty part of music history. But nothing about the business side of rock was ever pretty at any time, including today. You’d have to dismiss most of music history if your standards are that purist. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636/37 "2007-06-27T19:42:17Z")
[QUOTE=Wee Bairn] I think most people agree as long as they had given them all partial songwriting credits, everything would’ve been peachy. IIRC the only one of them ever giving a credit (and as a result $$$) was one Mrs. Valens. [/QUOTE] My vinyl of LZ I has credits for Dixon. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636/38 "2007-06-27T20:37:12Z")
[QUOTE=saoirse] Um, yeah that was kind of my point. Led Zeppelin would never have been heard on the radio if they were a cover band, no matter how good they were at it. However, everyone knew that Shakespeare was borrowing plots. [/QUOTE] “Um”?! You “ummed” me?! 🆒 \*\*Exapno \*\*did a fine job - your assertion that LZ would never have been heard on the radio if they were a cover band is baseless. ---
**Author:** ![rackensack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rackensack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rackensack)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636/39 "2007-06-27T21:29:50Z")
[QUOTE=Charlie Tan] Back in 1933 [John Lomax](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lomax), travelling with his son [Alan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Lomax), came to Angola Prison where they found Huddie Ledbetter, serving a sentence for murder. Lomax & son were folklorists and musicologists, recording music for the Library of congress and they wanted the folkmusic to be as authentic as possible, which is why they searched prisons. Ledbetter was renamed Leadbelly and had to abqandon hope of being as good a musician as he really was. Ledbetter played seven instruments and liked to make covers of Gene Autrey songs and contemporary jazz numbers, but the Leadbelly Lomax took to New York to display (compare with King Kong) was forbidden to play violin or accordion, Only guitar and the simplest, most “authentic” songs were allowed. Ledbetter wanted fancy suits, but Lomax insisted he perform wearing his old prison uniform. It’s no surpise he flopped at the Apollo theatre - blacks weren’t interested, because this was what white people thought black music should sound like, raw and primitive: "as if I were listening to the tom-toms of savage blacks” to quote Lomax from notes he wrote in 1932. Listening to actual African music, (which black slaves were not allowed to play in the U.S. but it survived in Latin American countries and the Caribbean (sp?)) it’s quite easy to hear how sophisticated it is, with very complex rythms. So the most authentic form of American music - the blues - was created by whites for whites, It never was authentic in the first place. Led Zeppelin ripping off what essentially was fake can’t really get me upset. From [Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music](http://www.amazon.com/Faking-Quest-Authenticity-Popular-Music/dp/0393060780/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/104-1366713-6645558?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182970522&sr=1-2) by Hugh Barker and Yuval Taylor. [/QUOTE] Yeah, those Mississippi sharecroppers – if de white man had just let them alone they’d all have been performing violin concertos at Carnegie Hall. :rolleyes: I’m sure the Lomaxes and any number of other “folklorists” and “musicologists” and what not tailored their selection of performers and songs to fit their preconceived notions of what was “authentic” and what wasn’t, and it doesn’t take a lot of looking around to discover that boundaries between white and black music, country & western and blues and swing and jazz and everything else, were a lot more fluid than the pseudo-intellectual blues purists of the '60s and '70s would have you believe. But it also doesn’t take a lot of looking around to see that there were a whole lot of black performers making records on “race music” labels like Paramount, et al., and selling lots of them to other black folks, throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Many were readily identifiable as “blues”, though with a wide stylistic range, various instrument combinations, etc. To suggest that the “blues”, historically, was created by whites for whites is ludicrous on its face. Certainly the ownership and staff of most of the labels, distributors, and publishing houses was white, but neither the performers nor the audience were. Of course, neither the audience nor the performers worried much about whether performers actually wrote their own songs, or whether they gave credit to whoever did. They weren’t collectors, or obsessive fan-boy types – they were people making some part of their living by playing music for other people, or people who wanted to dance and drink and gamble and have fun listening to music they liked. The same was true for the popular music that the white folks were playing and listening to as well – it’s just that there was more money to be made, and the writers and performers were in many cases more familiar with the idea that the “composer” was entitled to some compensation when others recorded or performed their songs, so they watched the till more carefully. I doubt that Page, Plant, Bonham, and Jones spent a whole lot of time thinking about creative credit or any of that, any more than Robert Johnson or Sonny Boy Williamson (either of them) or Son House or Elmore James did – LZ always seemed to me to have had other issues top of mind. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2007, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636/40 "2007-06-27T22:07:47Z")
[QUOTE=rackensack] Yeah, those Mississippi sharecroppers – if de white man had just let them alone they’d all have been performing violin concertos at Carnegie Hall. :rolleyes: [/QUOTE] Roleyes all you want. I provided a cite, you provide opinion. Black people played what they were allowed to play and during the 20th century, most of them played jazz and music derived from jazz. Satchmo made his first records in the 20’s, Robert Johnson in '36, when Leadbelly was acting “the noble savage” for Lomax in '33, Biillie Holiday made her first recording. Scott Joplin, arguably the father of ragtime started making money and [QUOTE=wiki] by 1898 Joplin had sold six pieces for the piano. Of the six, only “Original Rags”, a compilation of existing melodies that he wrote collaboratively, is a ragtime piece. The other five were “Please Say You Will”, “A Picture of Her Face”, two marches, and a waltz. [/QUOTE] Two marches and a waltz? Yeah, dem sharecroppers on the delta sho could play dem songs to make a grown man weep. Negro spirituals, gospel and blues all the way. BTW, which African instrument survived and is still thriving in America today, though not connected in any way to black, a.k.a urban music? banjo [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/led-zeppelin-shameless-copiers-so-it-seems/409636.md?page=3)