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Jimmy Page, It's time to call your lawyers?

I'm pretty late to this party--as usual.  A Chicago radio station is starry-eyed over Greta Van Fleet.  I gave them a listen today.  All I could think was...

Is this a Zeppelin parody band? 

There are so many features to their sound, playing, and sonics that sound just like LZ--so much so that I cannot get into the music passionately.  These are (IMHO):  Vocals (phrasing mimics Robert Plant without stopping);  Lyrics (the themes seem, based on limited listening, to track LZ);  Lead Guitar (I cannot think of another guitarist who sounds like he's trying to sound like Page as much as this one).  

Does Greta Van Fleet sound like a facsimile to you?  I'm not hung up on punishing artists who copy, as I think it's part and parcel of the art form.  But I'm having real trouble getting past the photocopy nature of this.  Again, this is just one person's opinion. So curious to hear what others think and feel about this group.  I'd like to give them more of a chance and maybe others can help.  For now, I can't keep listening.

128x128jbhiller
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
4,163 posts
 
My bugaboo with Led Zep revolves around Abel Ferrara's 1992 film "Bad Lieutenant".  A critical element in the film is Schooly D's song "The Signifying Rapper".  The song is from 1988 and it sampled LZ's "Kashmir", but it did so without getting clearance from LZ's publisher.  Everybody knows how the band outright stole whole songs from other artist, but LZ had the nerve to go after the film and the rapper.  Every copy of the movie with "The Signifying Rapper" had to be destroyed.  Legally they were fully within their rights, but I think, particularly with their own legal history, it reflects poorly upon them.

Ferrara re-edited the movie to remove the song, but he thought the film was ruined.  He said:
"Signifying Rapper" was out for five years, and there wasn't a problem. Then the film had already been out for two years and they start bitching about it. [...] It cost Schoolly like $50,000. It was a nightmare. And meanwhile, "Signifying Rapper" is 50 million times better than "Kashmir" ever thought of being. [...] Why sue? You should be happy that somebody is paying homage to your work.
To some extent you have to separate the artist as people from the art.  I may not be the biggest, but I have always been a fan of Led Zeppelin.  My problem with the band is "I'm talkin' about character. I'm talkin' about - hell...I ain't embarrassed to use the word - I'm talkin' about ethics."
tablejockey
743 posts
 
What Howlin Wolf cut does Zep reference with the"Lemon Song?"
Or is it some other Blues cat? 

This thread has become a music history class... like!

I can't get enough of El Becko's  bad ass cover of this tune,which also was covered by the great Freddie King.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=AwrEzeptejJcOKYAMT3BGOd_;_ylu=X3oDMTEybGJkdjBoBGNvbG8...


onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
4,163 posts
 
"Killing Floor" is the song LZ ripped off with "Lemon Song".  They also paid homage to Robert Johnson.
viking62's avatar
viking62
24 posts
 
There seems to be a bunch of these bands making a living off of Zep.

www.gtlorocks.com
stevecham
3,298 posts
 
There’s nothing new here and I’ll bet someone copied the guy or gal who invented the wheel too.

Where there’s copyright infringement, let lawyers duke it out.

No one complained of all the Beatles spin offs and copy cats and wanna bees after they broke up. A publishing company sued John Fogerty for copying one of his own songs. This stuff happens in every industry where someone does something original and lazy non-creative people want to cash in on other’s successes.

The Brit’s popularization of black American blues sparked considerable interest in the original artists and in many cases helped their careers. You didn’t see that happening from this side of the pond. Even Hendrix had to go to England to be appreciated, and then of course the pile-on soon followed in the US.
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