‘Stairway to Heaven’ lawsuit goes to trial

Guitarist Jimmy Page and singer Robert Plant have been named as defendants in a suit brought by a trustee for Randy Wolfe, guitarist for the band Spirit, who contends that Led Zeppelin copied the distinctive opening of “Stairway to Heaven” from a Spirit song called “Taurus”.

Starting Tuesday, a Los Angeles court will try to decide whether the members of Led Zeppelin themselves ripped off that riff.

The group reviewing evidence in a trial to decide whether “Stairway to Heaven” included a copied riff won’t include one of Led Zeppelin’s biggest fans.

Skidmore is working as a trustee for the late Randy Wolfe, better known as Randy California, Spirit guitarist and composer of “Taurus”.

“Well, if you listen to the two songs, you can make your own judgment”.

A judge ruled in April that there was potential for a jury to find a “substantial” similarity between the two recordings and approved the case. Wolfe died in 1997 after getting caught in a riptide while swimming with his young son. Instead of getting back together for an interview, an award, or our preferred reason – a reunion concert, the surviving members of Led Zeppelin are meeting up in Los Angeles today for Spirit’s “Stairway to Heaven” trial against them.

Malofiy attempted to push through a motion that would prevent Ferrara from testifying in defence of Led Zeppelin, just because he has previously been hired to analyse the songs by the plaintiff’s side.

Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin denied the claims, and declared that the chord progression was too much of a common occurrence in music to be warranted copyright protection.

The presiding judge, Gregory Klausner, oversees the proceedings with a gruff, military-evoking countenance – giving strict instructions as to how he feels lawyers should behave and having the bailiff toss out three spectators whose ringing iPhones violate his “all cellphones off” dictum.

“Stairway” is considered one of the most widely heard compositions in rock history and is the signature song of Led Zeppelin.

The Led Zeppelin dispute is the latest in a string of high-profile music plagiarism cases in LA.

As a result, the band has already been forced to alter the credits and pay portions of their royalties for songs such as Babe I’m Gonna Leave You and Whole Lotta Love.