Thanks for the clips, good stuff. I listened to an old Howard Stern interview last weekend about Zeppelin's sampling. Someone claimed that only one song from their debut album was original. They discussed how credit was not given for these songs, which made it look like Zeppelin was claiming they had written them. Although it may have been more of an Atlantic Records doing rather than the band. They called Zepp the "best ever cover band" but I think that may be going too far. I sort of do the same thing when I learn songs on the piano. For example, I'll learn a Prof Longhair song, then completely change the lyrics and add/remove a few things. The foundation of the song is still Longhair's so my version can't be considered an original. However, if I was just a little more skilled, I could change it enough to be considered an original. It seems like a huge grey area.
Lets get something straight. In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a sound recording in a different song or recording. This is illegal and musically controversial if permission has not been granted to use copyrighted recordings. Covering another composers songs with an original recording of your own is perfectly legal and scarcely a musical act that ever existed has not covered other tunes. The writers of the original song receives royalties from ASCAP or BMI. Led Zeppelin never "sampled" anybody. Like most bands they covered some other songs and paid royalties on them. At question is some other songs where original Led Zeppelin tunes borrowed some lyrics from traditional blues songs that had been recorded by other artists. A couple of artists settled out of court with Led Zeppelin's music publisher because they actually owned copyrights to some lyrics that were similar to lyrics used by Zeppelin. The other accusations were baseless because Zeppelin was using traditional lyrics in the public domain that existed long before the recordings of previous artists who did not own them. Bluesmen adapting lyrics from earlier blues songs is practically part of the genre. It is the job of ASCAP and BMI to sort out all of the copyrights and get the royalties to the right parties. Sometimes they have to make their case in court because the lines can be very blurry.
Thanks for the clarification although think I'm still confused about Zeppelin. Dazed and Confused had a very similar "sound" (that slow, walking base line note for note) to an earlier song although I think the lyrics were different. Isn't this a form of sampling? I know some have claimed that Babe I'm Gonna Leave You also had a very similar sound to a folk song that had been released just a year or two previously. Now that I think about it, I recall an old interview with John Paul Jones about the first time they got together. Someone mentioned a song they all knew, they started playing it, and the room came alive with a sound that they instantly knew had "it". I'm guessing (i.e. completely speculating) that many of their "original" songs started this way and were modified during the creative process just enough to be considered original. The point is that is was sampling notes and chord patterns for some songs and lyrics for others.
Sampling would be stealing their actual original recording and using part of it in a song. If they stole a riff from an earlier recording but made their own recording, then they may owe royalties on that, but it is not sampling. It happens quite a lot in composing. People consciously or subconsciously use part of some one else's song in their song. In "Come Together", John Lennon used the line "Here come old flattop, he come moving up slowly" from Chuck Berry's "Your can't catch me" as a tribute. It was intentional. When Chuck Berry's publisher asked for royalties, Lennon agreed to record one of Chuck's tunes in an upcoming album, for which Chuck would receive the composers royalty. George Harrison subconsciously used almost the entire melody from "He's So Fine" by the Chiffons when he wrote "My Sweet Lord" and later settled by paying the composer part of the royalties. Billy Joel, Andrew Lloyd Webber, lots of composers have borrowed just a bit too much from others at times. Other people make claims of stolen music that doesn't pass the smell test. Judges have to make decisions on this all the time. It's often a judgement call.
I hear songs all the time that start off with an intro that makes me think the song is some old classic rock song that I am familiar with and then it turns out to be something completely different. Not the lyrics but the melody. I don't know if this is legal or not but in a lot of cases it sounds like a blatant ripoff of a portion of the original song.
It's a fine call in some cases. The are certain early rock and roll riffs that are so fundamental to the genre that everybody uses them at some point. Still, Chuck Berry made a lot of royalties on a thousand songs that use the Johnny B. Goode riff, even though it has been used on thousands more recordings. Same thing with the Bo Diddley riff. They have almost passed into the public domain as traditional tunes, though. Other riffs are just too unique. If you use the riff from Satisfaction, Don't fear the reaper, I feel fine, or Purple Haze . . . You will be owing some royalties. Some composers will use a classic riff in homage to the original, but they still pay royalties. Harry Nilsson covered The Beatles You Can't Do That and managed to insert about a dozen other tunes into it, none of which were original. It might have been hard for ASCAP to figure out except he ripped them all off from Lennon and McCartney.
@red55 so what would you call that song by kid rock where he blatantly uses werewolf in london and sweet home alabama
I'm at a concert with shitty cell service. Think its called all summer long. Will post when I get out of here.
