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Post by Rob Allen on Apr 6, 2020 13:18:37 GMT -5
The toothbrush mustache brings up two images: Hitler and Chaplin. And Oliver Hardy.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Apr 6, 2020 13:18:47 GMT -5
"What's wrong with my moustache??? It's all Spider-man's fault!"
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Post by impulse on Apr 6, 2020 16:20:51 GMT -5
Kind of a spill-over from the Which One thread, but..
Led Zeppelin is famous for "borrowing" bits of music and motivations (occasionally entire songs) from other artists. This is of course crappy, and they should give proper credit and pay proper royalties.
That said, everything I am aware of them borrowing...their version was always better than the original. There, I said it.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Apr 6, 2020 16:33:09 GMT -5
Kind of a spill-over from the Which One thread, but.. Led Zeppelin is famous for "borrowing" bits of music and motivations (occasionally entire songs) from other artists. This is of course crappy, and they should give proper credit and pay proper royalties. That said, everything I am aware of them borrowing...their version was always better than the original. There, I said it. You may have said it. But you're certainly mistaken. Howlin' Wolf's "Killin' Floor" blows the doors off "The Lemon Song." They aren't worthy to carry Robert Johnson's jock strap on "Travelin' Riverside Blues." And I'll take Muddy Water and Willie Dixon on "You Need Love" over "Whole Lotta Love."
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Apr 6, 2020 16:41:27 GMT -5
Kind of a spill-over from the Which One thread, but.. Led Zeppelin is famous for "borrowing" bits of music and motivations (occasionally entire songs) from other artists. This is of course crappy, and they should give proper credit and pay proper royalties. That said, everything I am aware of them borrowing...their version was always better than the original. There, I said it. You may have said it. But you're certainly mistaken. Howlin' Wolf's "Killin' Floor" blows the doors off "The Lemon Song." They aren't worthy to carry Robert Johnson's jock strap on "Travelin' Riverside Blues." And I'll take Muddy Water and Willie Dixon on "You Need Love" over "Whole Lotta Love." Yeah! What he said. I do like Led Zep though. And, in fairness, much as I love Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie's original version of "When The Levee Breaks", John Bonham's drum intro to Led Zeppelin's version is kick ass.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 6, 2020 17:20:19 GMT -5
Zep stole "When The Levee Breaks" too? Geez, I thought I already knew all of the ones they stole. I've been a metal fan my whole life, and only discovered the blues a few years ago. I almost always prefer the first version of a song I hear, even it it's a cover, but I'll be damned if Howlin' Wolf's Killin' Floor isn't one of the best songs I've heard. But "blows the doors off of The Lemon Song" is further than I would go.
I always thought Plant was doing a generic black bluesman imitation on Bring It On Home. Now that I've heard the original, I realize he was doing a direct impression of Sonny Boy Williamson II. At least there's some irony in that particular lift, since they took the song from a dude who took somebody else's name/identity.
And Plant has the nerve to slag metal bands for not bringing anything new to the scene. Untrue and hypocritical.
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Post by impulse on Apr 6, 2020 21:09:34 GMT -5
Kind of a spill-over from the Which One thread, but.. Led Zeppelin is famous for "borrowing" bits of music and motivations (occasionally entire songs) from other artists. This is of course crappy, and they should give proper credit and pay proper royalties. That said, everything I am aware of them borrowing...their version was always better than the original. There, I said it. You may have said it. But you're certainly mistaken. Howlin' Wolf's "Killin' Floor" blows the doors off "The Lemon Song." They aren't worthy to carry Robert Johnson's jock strap on "Travelin' Riverside Blues." And I'll take Muddy Water and Willie Dixon on "You Need Love" over "Whole Lotta Love." Gonna have to part ways on this one. I have tried. Can’t get into them. Then again, it’s been a really long time since I’ve given Howlin’ Wolf a try. If nothing else I think I’ll give it another listen.
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Post by berkley on Apr 7, 2020 0:08:16 GMT -5
I'm not much of a straight blues guy though I can listen to it when I'm in the mood. But for the most part I prefer the British blues-rock that combined the blues with other influences. OTOH, if those later bands are just doing more or less straight covers, I usually prefer the originals. Zeppelin really should have credited the original artists whose material they lifted more often but I have to admit that their stuff usually sounds so good to me that I can't not enjoy it. And even though a lot of their stuff was put together by combining straight steals from other people's songs, they way they were put together and the way they were re-interpreted resulted in something pretty original, to my ears. Clapton should have credited some of the blues players for the solos he lifted as well, mostly when he was with Cream - one of my favourite Cream tracks, for example, Strange Brew, takes ALbert King's guitar licks from Cross-cut Saw, though the songs themselves aren't otherwise similar.
(edit:) listening to a couple Albert King songs to make sure I had the right one and perhaps it was more a matter of stealing from Albert King's style in general as there are bits of others of King's songs (e.g. Pretty Woman) as well that sound like Strange Brew's guitar solos.
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Post by berkley on Apr 7, 2020 2:35:38 GMT -5
Zep stole "When The Levee Breaks" too? Geez, I thought I already knew all of the ones they stole.
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Post by impulse on Apr 7, 2020 8:22:16 GMT -5
I will leave determining how true this is to each individual, but I think Zep's argument was that all the blues music was "traditional" and everyone borrowed from everyone else and it was just kind of the thing that was done until someone eventually wrote it down, and now all of a sudden it was "stealing."
...not sure I'm buying that one.
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Confessor
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Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,614
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Post by Confessor on Apr 7, 2020 10:20:27 GMT -5
I will leave determining how true this is to each individual, but I think Zep's argument was that all the blues music was "traditional" and everyone borrowed from everyone else and it was just kind of the thing that was done until someone eventually wrote it down, and now all of a sudden it was "stealing." ...not sure I'm buying that one. Well, there is some truth in that, to be fair. Many great and influential bluesmen "borrowed" plenty of other bluesmen's stuff. For example, Robert Johnson took the basic framework for Son House's "Walkin' Blues" and fashioned it into his own "Walkin' Blues", which is pretty similar, it has to be said. Likewise, Johnson stole the tune of the Mississippi Sheiks' "Sittin' On Top Of The World" for his own "Come On In My Kitchen". Big Joe Williams heavily based his classic "Crawlin' King Snake" on Blind Lemon Jefferson's earlier "Black Snake Moan". Then there is Muddy Waters' "Rollin' and Tumblin'" which is just a variation of Hambone Willie Newbern's earlier "Roll and Tumble Blues", which itself is heavily based on "Minglewood Blues" by Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers. There are hundreds of other examples like this scattered throughout the history of early blues music. Of course, the difference is that, back in the late 19th and early 20th century, blues was predominantly an oral tradition, just like folk songs were. Very little pre-World War II blues was actually recorded, relative to how many bluesmen there were out there regularly performing. A bluesmen might sometimes hear other players performing a particular song that impressed them at a juke-joint, and then adapt what they had heard into a song of their own from memory, to help expand their own repertoire. As such, they would often use fairly different lyrics and maybe even modify the tune because they couldn't exactly remember the song, having only heard it once or twice. But these old bluesmen, if they recorded at all -- and most didn't -- weren't making much if any money from sales of records. Their recorded sides were essentially tools to raise their public profile among the African-American blues audience is states like Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia, so that the artists on these records could get more live work and make money to live. So, to me, there's a world of difference between, say, Robert Johnson borrowing a tune by the Mississippi Sheiks for one of his own songs to help expand his repertoire to put food in his mouth, and Led Zep (and the Stones, to a lesser extent) borrowing old bluesmen's songs, barely changing a word and then deliberately falsifying the writing credits to cheat these bluesmen or their estates (if they even have one!) out of millions of dollars.
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Post by impulse on Apr 7, 2020 10:26:14 GMT -5
I will leave determining how true this is to each individual, but I think Zep's argument was that all the blues music was "traditional" and everyone borrowed from everyone else and it was just kind of the thing that was done until someone eventually wrote it down, and now all of a sudden it was "stealing." ...not sure I'm buying that one. Well, there is some truth in that, to be fair. Many great and influential bluesmen "borrowed" plenty of other bluesmen's stuff. For example, Robert Johnson took the basic framework for Son House's "Walkin' Blues" and fashioned it into his own "Walkin' Blues", which is pretty similar, it has to be said. Likewise, Johnson stole the tune of the Mississippi Sheiks' "Sittin' On Top Of The World" for his own "Come On In My Kitchen". Then there is Muddy Water's "Rollin' and Tumblin'" which is just a variation of Hambone Willie Newbern's earlier "Roll and Tumble Blues", which itself is heavily based on "Minglewood Blues" by Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers. There are hundreds of other examples like this scattered throughout the history of early blues music. Of course, the difference is that, back in the late 19th and early 20th century, blues was predominantly an oral tradition, just like folk songs were. Very little pre-World War II blues was actually recorded, relative to how many bluesmen there were out there regularly performing. A bluesmen might sometimes hear other players performing a particular song that impressed them at a juke-joint, and then adapt what they had heard into a song of their own from memory, to help expand their own repertoire. As such, they would often use fairly different lyrics and maybe even modify the tune because they couldn't exactly remember the song, having only heard it once or twice. But these old bluesmen, if they recorded at all -- and most didn't -- weren't making much if any money from sales of records. Their recorded sides were essentially tools to raise their public profile among the African-American blues audience is states like Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia, so that the artists on these records could get more live work and make money to live. So, to me, there's a world of difference between, say, Robert Johnson borrowing a tune by the Mississippi Sheiks for one of his own songs to help expand his repertoire to put food in his mouth, and Led Zep (and the Stones, to a lesser extent) borrowing old bluesmen's songs, barely changing a word and then deliberately falsifying the writing credits to cheat these bluesmen or their estates (if they even have one!) out of millions of dollars. Thank you for the very detailed additional context. It's the deliberately falsifying and refusing to share credit after Zep had made it big that I think is where it crosses a line.
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Post by beccabear67 on Apr 7, 2020 14:18:39 GMT -5
A lot of times, from what I know about Page, is that he let others make claims for him that weren't right, he just didn't correct them. Bert Jansch and others of the scene took things from others in terms of folk music and musicians (and the blues is a folk music) and people at the time just didn't think of credits always being accurate or right. Brian Jones co-wrote Ruby Tuesday with Keith Richards, everyone says so including Mick, but last I looked it still says Jagger-Richards on it. Those were different times, these things were not known to be important by most (and someone cashing the cheques had a strong motive to keep others ignorant, see The Animals' House of the Rising Sun 'as arranged by', or the many Huddie Ledbetter credits generally). The first serious non-fiction books about pop or rock music/musicians didn't really get beyond counting on one hand until near the middle of the '70s. Then again, someone like John Mayall who did know made sure the great blues artists got credit and payment for his '60s Bluesbreakers records, some could say there's no excuse for others who didn't make the effort. Someone in a position to say that has a right to, I'm not sure I would be them though. Sort of like the Kirby vs. Lee thing... there are people who I respect who can say things about that both ways, and then there's all the rest of us who weren't there. Jimmy Page is a great player... he was busy for a reason as a session musician and producer before joining The Yardbirds (which morphed into Led Zeppelin like Yes morphed into XYZ with him, and then Cinema with another guitarist, and finally back out as Yes again in the early '80s). We could talk about old British tv puppet shows for awhile if people are full up with music natter now.
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Post by impulse on Apr 7, 2020 14:19:43 GMT -5
You know, on the topic of Zep... I've listened to a playlist of some of their alleged thefts, and yeah, some of it is blatant, but some are also really reaching. Others are more middle of the road where you can see an inspiration but they changed it quite a bit.
Some were outright theft, though.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Apr 7, 2020 14:27:07 GMT -5
I'm not much of a straight blues guy though I can listen to it when I'm in the mood. But for the most part I prefer the British blues-rock that combined the blues with other influences. OTOH, if those later bands are just doing more or less straight covers, I usually prefer the originals. Zeppelin really should have credited the original artists whose material they lifted more often but I have to admit that their stuff usually sounds so good to me that I can't not enjoy it. And even though a lot of their stuff was put together by combining straight steals from other people's songs, they way they were put together and the way they were re-interpreted resulted in something pretty original, to my ears.Clapton should have credited some of the blues players for the solos he lifted as well, mostly when he was with Cream - one of my favourite Cream tracks, for example, Strange Brew, takes ALbert King's guitar licks from Cross-cut Saw, though the songs themselves aren't otherwise similar. (edit:) listening to a couple Albert King songs to make sure I had the right one and perhaps it was more a matter of stealing from Albert King's style in general as there are bits of others of King's songs (e.g. Pretty Woman) as well that sound like Strange Brew's guitar solos.
This pretty much my feelings on Led Zepplin. I don't know a lot of the original music that they borrowed from (and neither am I music historian either) but I do know that they did a lot of that. Maybe I have a different view of a lot of "borrowing" and sampling because I grew up in the 80's and 90's listening to rap which sampled heavily from older R&B/soul musicians whose music I did know. And in most cases liked both the original and sampling. Then there is me not knowing Ice Ice Baby was sampled from Under Pressure or Been Around the World sampled Let's Dance. Because my folks didn't listen to many of these artists and I didn't discover them until I got much older. In both cases, again I like both the original song and the sampled song. Covers however I am not so open minded about. :-) Also a side questions, since we are on the subject ... didn't Rolling Stones take The Verve to court over like one or two notes lifted from a song of theirs in Bittersweet Symphony? And then they apparently did it themselves with other people's music, with no credit?
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