Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway’ trial continues despite request to dismiss

Led Zeppelin’s Stairway To Heaven trial in Los Angeles has continued, despite their lawyer asking Judge R Gary Klausner a few days before to dismiss it before it went before a jury.

Peter Anderson argued that Francis Malofiy, lawyer for the estate of Spirit guitarist and composer Randy Wolfe (aka Randy California), had not proven their eight-minute rock epic was similar to the 1968 Spirit instrumental Taurus after three days of testimony.

Anderson, in a motion to dismiss, wrote, “Plaintiff rested and failed to carry his burden of proof on multiple issues.” Judge Klausner was expected to hear arguments on the motion overnight but did not do so. Instead, Zeppelin singer Robert Plant took the stand.

Anderson argued Malofiy has failed to show that Led Zeppelin members were aware of the song, and that his experts had not presented a convincing enough case that the tunes were similar enough to constitute “direct, contributory and vicarious" copyright infringement.

Those experts said there were many resemblances between the two songs. They both are largely in A minor, cover eight measures, have a descending bass line and have much the same rhythmic pattern.

Lawrence Ferrara, a music expert for Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, testified that the only similarity was a common descending chord sequence used as a musical building block for 300 years.

But musicologist Dr Alexander Stewart told the court that the chord progressions in Taurus and Stairway "both skip the E before resolving on an A note in an unusual way".

Anderson added that the Spirit camp had not proven that Jimmy Page had heard Taurus until a few years ago, and stated that Taurus was not even owned by Wolfe’s estate but had been bequeathed to his son. Nor had Spirit shown how Stairway’s existence had damaged them, or presented proper figures on the amount of royalties that Stairway To Heaven had generated since its release in the early ‘70s.

The band disputed one expert testimony that the song had earned close to US$60 million in the past five years, saying that the figure actually related to Zeppelin’s entire back catalogue and not just that one song. 

The Zeppelin motion read: "And, while – nearly a half century later – Mr. Page found Spirit’s first album in his collection of 4,329 albums and 5,882 CDs, there is no evidence he had the album 45 years ago." 

Randy California was a teen prodigy who had played with Jimi Hendrix in the mid-60s in America before Hendrix went to England and found world fame. He wrote Taurus for a girlfriend who was born under the sign. He drowned in 1997 in Hawaii while trying to save his son.

Zeppelin bassist and keyboard player John Paul Jones, who played the recorder opening on Stairway, testified last Friday that Page had never mentioned Spirit in his conversations over the years. Like Page, said Jones, he had never heard Taurus until the copyright infringement claim was filed two years ago. 

Robert Plant yesterday told the packed federal court that he did not remember hanging out with members of Spirit after a 1970 club show in Birmingham, England. Spirit’s bassist said that he had been drinking beer and playing snooker with them.

At the time Plant and his then-wife had been in a bad car wreck and he had no recollection of that evening.

"I don’t have a recollection of almost anyone I’ve hung out with," the singer said as the courtroom exploded with laughter.

(An earlier incident which caused a similar light hearted moment was when Page had been asked if he was a gifted guitarist. He paused for a long moment and responded, “Well, yeah!”).

But Plant had a vivid memory of how he and Page put Stairway together in the Bron Y Aur cottage in remote Wales. The two were sitting by the fireside when Page came up with the guitar intro. Plant responded he had a couplet that would fit, that went “There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold and she’s buying a stairway to heaven “

From there it started "rolling pretty fast," he said.

If Judge Klausner rejects the Zeppelin motion and continues with the trial, he would have to direct the jury on just what constitutes “access” to the song. In other words, did Page hear the little known Taurus before he began creating Stairway? Did having Spirit albums in his large record collection necessarily mean he’d heard it?