Yeah. I just wasn’t aware of Led Zeppelin’s extent before and how blatant, and not just blues artists.
Maybe there is something I am not aware of, but I would also give credit to The Rolling Stones in this regard, who gave credit and visited Chess Records in Chicago on their first U.S. visit, I believe, and even made some recordings there. Chess is where local blues artists like Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, and Howling Wolf and others recorded, including Chuck Berry (with Dixon on the standup bass).
In one interview I saw, Dixon said Jagger and Richards asked in that Chicago visit if he remembered them from a show of his in London. Dixon said that they used to let the ‘kids’ in the back door for free.
He chuckled and said of course he didn't remember them, they were so much younger and their hair much shorter then.
You know you have a problem when you have a Wikipedia page devoted to the songs you stole from other artists or otherwise did not give proper credit --
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Led_Zeppelin_songs_written_or_inspired_by_others
Everybody has *some* instances of that... even the mighty Beatles...
After the horn intro, you basically have "I Feel Fine." They even borrowed the little calypso beat in the background, not only the form of the guitar riff.
Led Zep has more copyright violations than practically any band out there. Great group, but copied from others repeatedly. I’d have a hard time saying what was the best ever, but the stones and Beatles have to be up there. I’m a Deep Purple fan and it’s hard to match their skills. Love Kansas, Chicago, Grand Funk...the list goes on.
The Mark I version of Deep Purple with Rod Evans on vocals -- the psychedelic pop on their first album and then the prog influences of their second and third before they went straight hard rock -- are still underrated. "Hush" is an all-time banger, and John Lennon thought their version of "Help!" was one of the best Beatles covers of all time.
Even their classic Mark II stuff needs more appreciation. I would rather listen to Blackmore than Page, Gillan than Plant, and Jon Lord was on his own level with prog keyboardists like Keith Emerson beyond anything in LZ, though Led Zeppelin's rhythm section was devastating early on before the drug use reduced their effectiveness greatly.
I have always found it funny how Led Zeppelin was at their best early on when they were borrowing heavily from their betters, on Houses of the Holy (their one truly great *and* truly original album), but after that, they kind of fell apart as a force.
Still stand by my previous statement... Deep Purple > Led Zeppelin.
But even they had their "lifts" from time to time --
To quote Ritchie Blackmore --
"After you've learned your second chord, get a really good lawyer."
Blacks created early rock music whites made all the money.
There is a lot of truth in that, but (mostly White) folk and country artists and (mostly White) composers and performers of Tin Pan Alley pop had much to do with the development of what we now call rock, too. That was what made popular music from the mid-1950s through the "classic" era so interesting in merging so many influences into so many fascinating and novel forms, but you are right is hard to understate the influence Black blues artists and especially guitarists had on the genre, particularly in the 60s and 70s.
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