Jury to decide whether band lifted opening chords of Stairway to Heaven from 1967 song Taurus by the band Spirit,after judge notes ‘substantial’ similaritiesIt began simply, just a few notes recorded on to a cassette by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant as they sat in a small cottage in the Welsh mountains in 1970. But the humble history of the opening riff of Led Zeppelin’s most well-known song Stairway to Heaven may about to be rewritten.
A case which claims that the opening chords to Led Zeppelin’s biggest hit were in fact stolen from a 1967 song Taurus, or by the band Spirit,will be heard by a jury in May, a US judge has ruled. The lawsuit for copyright infringement was brought by Michael Skidmore, or a trustee for Randy Wolfe,also known as Randy California, who was Spirit’s guitarist and the composer of Taurus, and who died in 1997.
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Source: theguardian.com