I have to apologize for my lack of posts lately, but I've been off doing other things. I'm not going to do a long post today (I know what you're thinking...he always says that and five paragraphs later...). I was reading the latest issue of Classic Rock Magazine at the gym yesterday and there was an article on Jimmy Page and the making of Led Zeppelin I that was pretty interesting. Most folks who credit Zeppelin for breaking heavy metal ground don't pay much mind to the allegations of plagiarism that have dogged the mighty Zep for four decades now. It's not going to keep them out of the Hall of Fame Mark McGwire/Rafael Palmeiro style obviously, but it's an interesting discussion. As it was reported in Classic Rock's April issue, Jake Holmes is apparently the true writer of the legendary Dazed and Confused track on Led Zeppelin I. If you have never heard of Jake Holmes join the club. I was a mere seven years of age in 1967 when The Above Ground Sound of Jake Holmes was released to little fanfare. Apparently Jimmy Page saw one of his shows and was mesmerized by the track thus changing the course of history.Led Zeppelin I is littered with old blues numbers rearranged and borrowed. If you read the article there is a lot of interesting information about the origin of some of the tracks. The Willie Dixon stuff is clear and credited, but there were apparently some shenanigans regarding the crediting of songwriters on the rest of the tracks. Suffice to say Jake Holmes is still waiting for his first royalty check for Dazed and Confused. It was a different era when it came to crediting the original songwriters in those days. Some were under the impression that if you rearranged the song you could call it your own. Others figured the songs would never sell or be popular enough to warrant proper credit. Certainly no one really expected heretofore session man extraordinaire Jimmy Page to shake up the world. Zeppelin, of course, need not apologize for their stellar library, but since they clearly borrowed from blues greats (who, in fairness, borrowed from other uncredited and long forgotten deceased artists themselves, let alone each other) for their first three LPs it might be nice to do a little retroactive recognition of still living artists like Jake Holmes. He apparently got some bad information back in the day thinking he couldn't sue and Zeppelin would allegedly just like to keep a lid on their borrowed melodies. I could care less as a huge fan of theirs, but it's not like they need the dough. Long Jake Holme's version is pretty cool for clocking in under four minutes. Enjoy.
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