photo by Dick Barnatt, Redferns, London, December 1968/Getty Images
Next week’s Cannes Film Festival in France will feature the premiere of a new documentary celebrating the legacy and 50th anniversary of iconic rock band Led Zeppelin.
The film, which is still untitled, will exclusively feature new interviews with band members Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones, plus archival footage of interviews with late drummer John Bonham, previously unreleased footage, music from the band and their influences, and more, marking the first time the Zeppelin bandmates have participated in a documentary about the group.
The filmmakers, including director Bernard MacMahon (who also helmed the ambitious American Epic), aimed to present “the Led Zeppelin story told through the words of the men that lived it, with no outside voices or conjecture.”
“When I saw everything Bernard had done both visually and sonically on the remarkable achievement that is American Epic, I knew he would be qualified to tell our story,” says Page, while Jones adds, “The time was right for us to tell our own story for the first time in our own words, and I think that this film will really bring this story to life.”
7 Comments comments associated with this post
Tone
May 15, 2019 at 4:20 amHey Jaggerrich, fuck you!
JAGGERRICH
May 13, 2019 at 7:02 pmAgree with “DICK HEADS AND MOMS”- WHO CARES ABOUT SOME LAME OLD PIECE OF CRAP THAT NEVER HAD SUCCESS!!! FUCK THEM FOR NOT SUCKING JIMMY PAGE’S DICK WHO WAS A TRUE SUCCESS!!! CAPITALISM IS THE JUDGE AND NOT SOME LAME OLD NOBODY!!!!!SOME LAME OLD ddddiiiiiccckkkkkkk!!!!! BRAHAHAHAHAHA! Dick is a little dick!!!!!!!! LMAO!!!!!!!
Deadman
May 9, 2019 at 1:01 amThe most over hyped band in the history of rock and roll.
Greg
May 8, 2019 at 8:25 pmYes dick they were frequent plagiarists. And damn good ones. They should have given credit where due but regardless were one of the best rock bands ever. Kashmir and many of their best songs are completely original.
DICK HEAD & MOMS
May 8, 2019 at 8:16 pmAnd who gives a shit, who gives a fuck? Even if true, they turned crappy, forgotten old & obscure riffs & lyric into utter Magic. They should be praised for turning crap into gold!
Pops
May 8, 2019 at 7:13 pmBunch of thieves. Thanky Dick for laying out. Oh, they stole from Spirit to cash out from Stairway
Dick
May 8, 2019 at 5:56 pmDecide for yourself who’s to blame: here are 10 cases when the band, at least initially, didn’t give other songwriters their due.
1. “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You”
This song, more than any other track on Led Zeppelin’s debut album, established their epic sweep. It was written by American folk singer Anne Bredon in the 1950s: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, however, were fans of Joan Baez and knew the track from her 1962 album Joan Baez in Concert, Part 1. (Page has said that he learned the song “in the days of sitting in the darkness, playing my six-string behind Marianne Faithfull.”) Led Zeppelin credited the song as traditional (and gave arrangement credit to Page); in fairness to them, Baez’s album also mistakenly listed the song as traditional. Bredon was apparently unaware that Led Zeppelin had covered her song: When she found out in the Eighties, she agreed to split the royalties with the band, and is now listed as co-author.
2. “Dazed and Confused”
Page also did this song with the Yardbirds, but the origin is actually singer-songwriter Jake Holmes, who included it on his 1967 album “The Above Ground Sound” of Jake Holmes. Page has claimed to be unaware of Holmes’ song, but the title and much of the music are unmistakably the same (Page rewrote most of the lyrics). Page apparently heard the song when Holmes opened for the Yardbirds at a Greenwich Village gig. For decades, Holmes declined to sue for authorship; as he put it, “I said, ‘What the hell, let him have it.’” In 2010, however, Holmes finally filed suit; the case was settled out of court and the 2012 Zeppelin live album Celebration Day credits the song as written by “Page; inspired by Jake Holmes.”
3. “Whole Lotta Love”
When it came time for Plant to lay down vocals over Page’s guitar riff – one of the first times he ever contributed lyrics to a Zeppelin track–he quoted from “You Need Love,” a song written by Willie Dixon and sung by Muddy Waters in 1962. (Dixon sued in 1985, settled out of court, and is now listed as co-writer.) As Plant later described it, “I just thought, ‘Well, what am I going to sing?’ That was it, a nick. Now happily paid for. At the time, there was a lot of conversation about what to do. It was decided that it was so far away in time and influence that … Well, you only get caught when you’re successful. That’s the game.” It’s worth noting, however, that only seven years separate “You Need Love” and “Whole Lotta Love.”
4. “The Lemon Song”
While the famous lemon-squeezing lyric dates back to Robert Johnson’s “Traveling Riverside Blues” (also covered by Zeppelin), this song owes more to Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killing Floor,” which the band had been playing live. A lawsuit soon ensued; as a result, on some pressings of Led Zeppelin II, the track is actually listed as “Killing Floor.” Ultimately, it reverted to the citrus title, and the band now credits Chester Burnett (Howlin’ Wolf’s real name) as co-author.
5. “Bring It on Home”
The closing track on Led Zeppelin II is a Page/Plant composition bookended by quiet bluesy sections. Those bookends, fairly blatantly, are a cover of “Bring It on Home,” the Sonny Boy Williamson blues song written by Zep favorite Willie Dixon. Page complained, “The thing with ‘Bring It on Home,’ Christ, there’s only a tiny bit taken from Sonny Boy Williamson’s version and we threw that in as a tribute to him. People say, ‘Oh, “Bring It on Home” is stolen.’ Well, there’s only a little bit in the song that relates to anything that had gone before it.” However, those bookends are more than a “little bit” of the track: they form half its running time. On the live album How the West Was Won, released in 2003, the band designated their middle composition as “Bring It on Back” and gave appropriate credit to Dixon.
6. “Since I’ve Been Loving You”
Another track with uncredited elements on loan from another song: In this case, some of the lyrics came from “Never,” released just two years earlier by one of Plant’s favorite bands, Moby Grape: “Working from 11 to 7 every night/Ought to make life a drag” became “Working from 7 to 11 every night/It really makes life a drag.”
7. “Bron-Y-Aur Stomp”
Jimmy Page often cited Scottish folk musician Bert Jansch as an influence. So much so that two Zeppelin tracks bear strong similarities to recordings Jansch made: “Black Mountain Side” borrows heavily from “Down by Blackwaterside,” while “Bron-Y-Aur Stomp” is clearly a reworking of Jansch’s “The Waggoner’s Lad.” Jansch never sued: Although Page gave himself writing credits, the original material is based on folk melodies. But one of Jansch’s bandmates in Pentangle, Jacqui McShee complained, “It’s a very rude thing to do. Pinch somebody else’s thing and credit it to yourself.”
8. “Hats Off to (Roy) Harper”
The last track on Led Zeppelin III, named in tribute to the band’s chum Roy Harper, throws together bits and pieces of various blues songs, most prominently Bukka White’s “Shake ‘Em on Down,” released in 1937. The band listed the author as “Traditional” and the arrangement as being by “Charles Obscure” (a pseudonym for Page).
9. “In My Time of Dying”
This 11-minute Physical Graffiti track is credited to Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham, but it’s clearly the traditional gospel song that was recorded by many other people, starting with Blind Willie Johnson in 1927 (his version was called “Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed”) and including Bob Dylan in 1962 (he called it “In My Time of Dyin’” and made no claim on authorship). No lawsuit resulted: The song is in the public domain.
10. “Boogie With Stu”
This excellent cover of Ritchie Valens’ song “Ooh My Head” was originally intended for Zeppelin’s fourth album with a title of “Sloppy Drunk.” Eventually released on Physical Graffiti, the song was credited to the four members of Led Zeppelin, plus titular pianist Ian Stewart, and “Mrs. Valens,” in an effort to get some royalties directly to the mother of the original singer, who had died in a 1959 plane crash. “Robert did lean on that lyric a bit,” Page conceded. “So what happens? They try to sue us for all the song!” he said indignantly, as if the band hadn’t borrowed the song’s melody wholesale. “We could not believe it.”