As is my wont, I was listening to the Coverville podcast a couple weeks ago. Brian Ibbott decided to play several covers of Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, some straightforward, some silly. I was disappointed, though, that he didn’t play my favorite cover by Little Roger and the Goosebumps, Stairway to Gilligan’s Island. As it turns out, Brian had played it on this April 2007 episode.
I discovered that the song, recorded in March 1978, and released it as a single in May 1978, inspired Led Zeppelin’s lawyers to threaten to sue for copyright infringement and demanded that remaining copies of the recording be destroyed. This is highly ironic, given the fact that Stairway seems to be heavily copped from the 1968 song Taurus by the group Spirit, the first song on that recent Coverville episode, a snippet of which can also be found here. In fact, this website addresses many of Led Zeppelin’s “influences”.
At least I own a collector’s item.
HERE.
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October 9 birthdays in the category: Lennon, Sean, who I saw perform last year, and his late father John, who is represeented here:
or here.
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ROG