Led Zeppelin thankful ‘Stairway’ rift is settled

The suit was filed two years ago by Michael Skidmore, a trustee for the songs of Randy Wolfe, a member of the band Spirit.

After a weeklong federal court trial in Los Angeles, the jury found substantial differences between “Stairway to Heaven” and Spirit’s instrumental track “Taurus”.

Page, who co-wrote “Stairway to Heaven” with Plant and composed the guitar riff in question, testified he had not heard “Taurus” until recent years.

Jurors could rewrite a key chapter of rock “n” roll history as they deliberate whether Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and Robert Plant lifted a riff from fellow rockers for its epic “Stairway to Heaven”.

“We appreciate our fans support and look forward to putting this legal matter behind us”, Page and Plant said. Page and Plant countered this argument, saying they never watched or heard Spirit’s performances. Stairway to Heaven was released in 1971.

“I knew I had never heard it before. Something like that would have stuck in my mind”, Page told the court.

Plant recalled sitting by the fire when Page first played the intro to him on acoustic guitar and he offered the start of a couplet now known to millions: “There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold/and she’s buying a stairway to heaven”. After being questioned by the plaintiff’s attorney, the guitarist noted the influence of “Chim Chim Cher-ee”, from the 1964 movie Mary Poppins, on “Stairway to Heaven”.

In his evidence, singer Plant, 67, said he had no memory of watching Spirit in Birmingham in 1970, because he was involved in a vehicle crash that night.

Led Zeppelin bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones also took the stand during the trial.

However, he did admit to owning three Spirit albums and acknowledged the band may have influenced his writing of the song, but called accusations of plagiarism “ridiculous”. The case is not the first time Led Zeppelin was accused of swiping another artist’s work.Stops on the tour of testimony included Spirit shows at “love-ins” during the “Summer of Love”, Led Zeppelin’s 1968 U.S. debut as opener for Spirit and Vanilla Fudge and, finally, to a country house in the south of England where Page, Plant and keyboardist and bassist John Paul Jones described how “Stairway” was born. The trust relied on expert accounts from the sheet music filed with the U.S. Copyright Office.

Music experts on Spirit’s side affirmed that both songs had a similar chord progression, and they highlighted a descending bass line in a chromatic scale, The Washington Post reported. They hugged their lawyers after the announcement in their favor.