Led Zeppelin due in court for start of Stairway to Heaven copyright infringement trial
Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and Robert Plant are due in court on Tuesday to defend their iconic rock song Stairway to Heaven from accusations of plagiarism.
The pair are named as defendants in a lawsuit brought by the trustee of late guitarist Randy Wolfe, of the psychedelic band Spirit.
The Los Angeles band, which enjoyed a niche following, claims that the famous melancholic guitar riff that opens Stairway to Heaven was lifted from Spirit's instrumental track Taurus, which Wolfe wrote in either 1966 or 1967.
Wolfe, who used the nickname Randy California, died in 1997, but the lawsuit was filed by his trustee Michael Skidmore.
Watch a YouTube musician play extracts from both songs
Wolfe said in a magazine quoted in the lawsuit: "Well, if you listen to the two songs, you can make your own judgment. It’s an exact...I’d say it was a rip-off.
"And the guys made millions of bucks on it and never said ‘thank you,’ never said, ‘can we pay you some money for it?’ It’s kind of a sore point with me.”
Led Zeppelin were the opening act for Spirit when the British rockers made their US debut on December 26 1968 in Denver.
A judge sent the case to trial after ruling in April that evidence presented in hearings made a circumstantial case that Led Zeppelin may have heard Taurus performed before writing their song.