Both pieces are based on a descending chromatic chord sequence in A minor that was used in other well-known pieces, such as “My Funny Valentine”, said Joe Bennett, a forensic musicologist at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Singer Robert Plant, right, was in court with him.
Advertisement
Malofiy played a snippet of the Disney tune in court on Thursday morning (16Jun16) and suggested Page had said he was inspired by the song, sung by Dick Van Dyke, while he was writing Stairway to Heaven.
In much of the morning’s testimony, Malofiy delved into the minutiae of the musical composition of “Stairway” in an effort to show similarities to Spirit’s 1968 instrumental “Taurus”.
In the music world, the case is a Very Big Deal – like last year’s ruling in the copyright infringement case against Robin Thicke, wherein a judge ruled that Thicke had in fact duplicated elements of Marvin Gaye’s 1977 hit Got to Give It Up, the Stairway to Heaven case could potentially set a precedent that would carry powerful implications for musicians.
According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Stairway To Heaven had earned $562m (£334m) as of 2008.
Page, 72, on Wednesday testified that he did not recall hearing “Taurus” until recently, after he had been made aware of comparisons being made between the two songs. But they were treated to his trademark charm and blunt Britishisms after he settled into the witness chair.
Page says he only knew Spirit’s song “Fresh Garbage” because he heard it on the radio.
Klausner refused to allow the discussion because that contract fell outside the statute of limitations for this case, which allows Wolfe’s estate to reach back only three years before the 2014 reissue of Led Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album, commonly known as “Led Zeppelin IV”.
Before concluding his testimony, Page was played “Chim Chim Cher-ee”, and Malofiy asked if it was the inspiration for “Stairway”.
“Page seemed relieved whenever music became the trial’s focus: He nodded to the groove to both Stairway to Heaven and Taurus alike when acoustic renditions of each song were played for the jury”.
A day after testifying that he had never heard Taurus before composing Stairway To Heaven, Page told Francis Alexander Malofiy, a lawyer for the trustee, that he was unsure if any similarity existed between the two songs.
US District Judge Gary Klausner ordered the trial to go forward in April after ruling the two songs had “substantial” similarities.
Robert Plant and Jimmy Page front Led Zeppelin.
So was Page’s claim that he’d never heard Spirit’s first album wholly credible? Music copyright lawyer Steven Weinberg told the Associated Press that he found Page to be “charming, confident and well prepared”.
In answers that sometimes strayed from the scope of the question, Page told of learning to play guitar 60 years ago when he was 12.
For the second day in a row, Jimmy Page was grilled on the stand about the authorship of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”.
‘To my ear, they sound like they are one piece of music, ‘ he said.
Advertisement
Page said he didn’t remember saying that.
