“Something like that would stick in my mind”.
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Page and Plant didn’t hear the song for decades, though Led Zeppelin had incorporated a bass riff from one of Spirit’s songs, “Fresh Garbage”, in a medley, Anderson said.
The estate of Spirit’s late guitarist, Randy Wolfe, also known as Randy California, contends the famous descending-chord progression that softly begins the crescendo-building “Stairway” was lifted from Wolfe’s, “Taurus”, which was released a few years earlier.
But he told the court on the second day of the trial he only realized Spirit’s first record was among them when he searched for it after his son-in-law played an internet posting in which the tracks were compared side by side.
As Malofiy continued to ask Page whether he had ever talked about being a fan of Spirit, Judge Klausner interrupted, saying: “How many times can we beat a dead horse?”
Parts from both songs were played in court, and Andes said they sounded the same.
Bizarrely, the similarity between Spirit’s song “Taurus” and “Stairway to Heaven” wasn’t brought up until almost two hours into today’s proceedings; the friendship between Jimi Hendrix and late Spirit guitarist and “Taurus” composer Randy California was brought up ad infinitum by the plaintiff’s witness, while a seemingly pointless and sentimental questioning of Spirit superfan Bruce Pates by Malofiy dragged on forever.
Page told the panel that although he did find a copy of the Los Angeles band’s eponymous first album in his collection, he has no recollection of actually listening to it or buying it. Wolfe’s trustee Michael Skidmore claims “Stairway to Heaven” is a rip-off of Spirit’s “Taurus”.
In 1996 before his death, Randy told Listener magazine that he was sure Stairway To Heaven was a “rip-off” of his own track, because Led Zeppelin regularly heard Taurus during as Spirit’s support act in 1968 and 1969.
Jimmy Page started off on the stand in the morning, but the questions he faced were rather dry – although he did play the air guitar while talking to Robert Plant during one of the breaks.
As the opening minutes of “Stairway to Heaven” were played, Plant looked at the jury and Page nodded his head to the tune.
Page, 72, said he would have remembered the Spirit instrumental if he had heard it before because of its memorable orchestral opening.
He said he recalled vividly seeing Plant at the show in the front row.
The band has settled several similar copyright disputes over songs such as “Whole Lotta Love” and “Dazed and Confused”, but the judge has barred Malofiy from introducing evidence from those cases.
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Plant and Jones are also due to give evidence in the case, although the bassist was a not a songwriter on “Stairway To Heaven”.
