Jimmy Page settles decades-long Dazed and Confused lawsuit with original songwriter
Jimmy Page and Jake Holmes have settled their decades-long lawsuit over the origins of Dazed and Confused, just months after fresh allegations were levelled against the Led Zeppelin guitarist.
American singer-songwriter Holmes had written the original version of the track in 1967. Then, having played it when opening for the Yardbirds at a Greenwich Village gig in New York, Page is said to have been drawn to the song. The Yardbirds promptly began adding it to their live set before a reworked version made its way onto Led Zeppelin’s debut album a year later.
The liner notes on Led Zeppelin I credit Page as the sole songwriter, which was changed to “inspired by Jake Holmes” following an initial copyright infringement lawsuit in 2010, settled in 2011.
In May, following the release of the new documentary, Becoming Led Zeppelin, Holmes filed a fresh lawsuit. He alleged that Page had released several archival Yardbird live performances of the track, which left his name off the credits. Such a move is said to go against their 2011 settlement agreement, thus sparking new legal wranglings.
He also claimed that he had not been compensated for the use of the song in the documentary, which charts the band’s origins.
Full details of the new settlement have not been disclosed, but Reuters reports that the two parties told a California court that the issues have been resolved. Both parties are now working on a final written settlement.
Page and company have faced copyright allegations before. The band was sued in 2014, with the opening bars of Stairway of Heaven said to be lifted directly from Spirit’s 1968 instrumental, Taurus.
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Led Zeppelin had toured with Spirit during one of the group’s earliest US tours, and they even covered Spirit’s Fresh Garbage in their formative days, leading to claims that Page had stolen guitar parts from Taurus.
Led Zeppelin won the initial case in 2016, but it was then revived two years later, only for the US Supreme Court to decline to hear the case, thus putting the dispute to bed.
In related news, a guitar that Jimmy Page gave away for free in a magazine competition is expected to fetch over $67,000 when it goes to auction next month. Page had bought the 1957 Gretsch Chet Atkins 6120 for £200, and has since been described as “mental” for parting with it so willingly.
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