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Love him or hate him, guitar virtuoso Jimmy Page is one hell of an enigma. While I'm no Zeppelin obsessive, I do own all of their records, and even if I don't bust them out all that often, I enjoy hearing them from time to time and I definitely respect the band's place in history. And then there were the Yardbirds, easily one of the sixties' five most important bands. Most people know of Page's ace session work prior to his joining the Yardbirds, but did you know that it is estimated that he appeared on a whopping sixty percent of all music recorded in England between 1963 and 1966?! That is an astonishing statistic. Not even Page's biggest detractors can deny his skills--when it came to wielding an axe, he was a genius, no question.


Jimmy Page, with the balls to match his phallic surrogate
Yet when it came to songwriting, Page's legacy, along with those of his Zeppelin brethren, takes a murky turn into musical shysterism. It is no secret that the majority of the band's catalog was lifted from the back pages of the blues, a fact that is certainly not unique to Led Zeppelin. The entire history of rock n' roll, and all art, really, is a succession of reshuffling and repackaging of previous influences, tweaked in one way or another to create something new. And there can be no doubt that Zeppelin's take on the likes of Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters was tweaked. Bombastically so.

Neither was the band the first to steal from the blues and not give credit where credit was due. Just dial up Chuck D and he could surely recite a litany of such offenses. What sets Zeppelin apart is not merely the lack of credit given to their sources (unless forced to by lawsuit--big ups to Willie D), but the volume and scope of their crimes, the brazenness with which they got away with it, and the massive success and riches they earned because of it.

For a fuller accounting of this saga, click here for Will Shade's article, "The Thieving Magpie: Jimmy Page's Dubious Recording Legacy." Shade traces the roots of this phenomenon back to the latter days of the Yardbirds, just after the young session man Page joined the band:

The Yardbirds, while one of the most innovative bands ever, had always been quick to acknowledge their stone cold blues roots. As an example, their stratospheric adaptation of "I'm a Man" was properly credited to Ellas McDaniel, a.k.a. Bo Diddley. The same holds true for a slew of other covers the Yardbirds performed, both on stage and in the studio.

With Jimmy Page's ascendancy as lead guitarist, things began to change. Their final LP, 1967's Little Games, contained a number of traditional songs that the Yardbirds' names appeared on. Consequently, royalties wouldn't go to the American blues artists responsible for the songs, but rather to the English musicians themselves. Whereas in the past cover songs like "Smokestack Lightning" acknowledged the legitimate authors, non-original songs were now ascribed to the band. This was a procedure that would be repeated throughout Jimmy Page's career.

The story of "Dazed and Confused" is perhaps the most fascinating example of Page's shady modus operandi. In 1967, the Yardbirds played a show with Jake Holmes, a little-known Greenwich Village folk singer. After being blown away by this song of his, they rewrote and incorporated an expanded version of it into their act for the last six months of their existence. When the Yardbirds dissolved in July 1968, Page carried the song with him to his next project. It would end up the centerpiece of Led Zeppelin's debut album as well as the band's live act for their duration. And the songwriting credits for "Dazed and Confused"? "By Jimmy Page", of course.

But surely Page's much-lauded incorporation of a violin bow into the song's guitar solo was a totally unique, genius move, right? Maybe so, until you discover that Eddie Phillips, lead guitarist of The Creation (one of the greatest unsung bands of the sixties) employed a violin bow on two 1966 singles, "Painter Man" and "Making Time." (Download "Making Time" from the sidebar.) And while it can't be proven that Page stole this idea from Phillips, given the man's knack for...recycling, so to speak, and his proximity to the same British studios, it's more than likely.


Click here for more details on the lineage of "Dazed and Confused". For more info on Jake Holmes, and to hear a sample of his version of "Dazed", click here. And for the best summation of all, check out the companion to Will Shade's Jimmy Page piece, "Dazed and Confused: The Incredibly Strange Saga of Jake Holmes", here.

(By the way, think you don't know Jake Holmes? You'd be wrong. After recording several records in the late sixties and early seventies, Holmes went on to work in the commercial industry and composed three of the most insufferably catchy jingles in the history of television: "Be All You Can Be" for the U.S. Army, "Raise Your Hand if You're Sure" for Sure deodorant, and "Be a Pepper" for Dr. Pepper. Life sure is funny like that.)

But back to Page and Zeppelin. It would require an encyclopedia to catalog all the bands and artists they ripped off through the course of their career. If you're interested, just do some googling. Take a listen to "You Need Lovin'" by The Small Faces (download from the sidebar) and then tell me with a straight face that "Whole Lotta Love" is properly credited to Page-Plant-Jones-Bonham on Led Zeppelin II. Here, Robert Plant takes the lead, pilfering every last scrap of Steve Marriott's wonderful vocal performance. Or, if you like your plagiarism a bit more subtle, take a listen to Eddie Cochran's classic rockabilly number, "Nervous Breakdown" with "Communication Breakdown" in mind, or rock out to Little Richard's "Keep A-Knockin'" and think: drum intro to "Rock n' Roll". Even rock's #1 anthem, "Stairway to Heaven", bears more than a slight resemblance in places to the Chocolate Watch Band's "And She's Lonely" and Spirit's "Taurus".

Again, this sort of stuff is not news to any student of rock history, but it is no less fascinating to compare these songs side-by-side and hear for yourself the extent of the thievery. And while it can be argued successfully that Zeppelin added more than enough to the songs they stole to deserve everything they achieved, it can just as easily put a bad taste in your mouth the next time you hear someone proclaim Led Zeppelin the greatest band of all time (as I overheard at a party just last night!).


N/P Led Zeppelin -- Physical Graffiti