Jake Holmes in 1967 came up with a song called “Dazed and Confused”:
Holmes opened for the Yardbirds in 1967 in Greenwich Village. The Yardbirds liked the song so much they did their own version in 1968. Jimmy Page plays part of it with a bowstring on an electric guitar.
The Yardbirds in 1968:
The Yardbirds broke up and Jimmy Page formed a new band, Led Zeppelin. They worked on the song some more and came up with the now-famous version of it.
Led Zeppelin in 1969:
Jake Holmes would later take Led Zeppelin to court for ripping off his song. They apparently settled out of court.
I like Led Zeppelin a lot but of all the British Rock bands they were the probably the one with the least respect for properly crediting (and paying) other musicians whose work they covered.
http://www.theurbanpolitico.com/2012/04/music-reviews-musical-theft-led.html
A lot of this has been settled out of court after lawsuits and credits changed but some of it hasn’t.
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Wow. Never heard this one before. Sounds a bit like beatnik material.
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Man, I know I had to comment on this one! I really like Led Zeppelin and Dazed and Confused is one of my favorite songs by them. I never knew it was Jack Holmes’ song before.
Another thing about listening to Led Zeppelin, most of my peers don’t know who they are so when I tell them that I listen to them, most of them don’t know what I listen to. All I know is I listen to music I enjoy and love and Led Zeppelin made amazing music in their heyday.
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@Shady,
Yeah, they were shameful when it came to acknowledging where their songs came from and looking after the original authors. Which is sad considering the amount of dough they made. Still, they improved all the songs they did take, so I;m glad they took them.
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Interesting. Yet another example among the many of Zep ripping off other people’s work and arrogating it as their own.
As to whether they improved such work in the process is a subjective matter. Listen, side-by-side, to Pagey’s and Beck’s versions of “You Shook Me” (both having come from the Yardbirds and both having covered this joint post-YB). For my money, I’m with Beck every time.
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Zeppelin also covered Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters , just to name a few off the top of my head. They also incorperated old irish folk music. Not saying they werent original as well cause they were, but they did borrow a little.
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Cover of Robert Johnson…. What makes it different is the rock style drums imo.
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also some of their best original songs were inspired by the Lord of the Rings saga.
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I don’t mind the covering because most musicians do that when they’re just starting out. I also don’t mind a handful of dubious actions because again that’s not uncommon. What made LZ different and is a mark against them despite the fact that I like much of their music was a consistent refusal to properly credit sources-black or white, American or not, Page just didn’t seem to want to admit that he didn’t write certain things. He arranged them-better in some cases to my ears but worse in others.
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Count on Led Zeppelin to steal other people’s work, mostly blues musicians. They were sued several times. Strange considering they played and wrote their own material, and Jimmy Page produced all of their albums. They were talented enough: it is like Metallica ripping off Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath.
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Clapton also covered alot of Blues stuff, but also came up with tremendous original work.
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[…] Dazed and Confused […]
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