By Brian Melley
LOS ANGELES (AP) --Rock 'n' roll history played out Tuesday in a Los Angeles courtroom as vintage recordings of Led Zeppelin working on the song that became the epic "Stairway to Heaven" were played and the songwriters discussed its craft.
Jimmy Page testified about his ambitions to write a song that would accelerate to a crescendo and how he shared the introduction with keyboardist and bassist John Paul Jones to get an ally in his scheme.
Singer Robert Plant discussed matching a couplet to Page's opening on acoustic guitar as a fire crackled in the hearth at Headley Grange south of London in the spring of 1970.
The rough cuts to one of rock's most enduring anthems included Page playing the instantly recognizable intro and breaking into a strumming pattern that would not make the final cut and Plant singing off key in his first effort to blend his lyrics to the melody.
The genesis of the song is at question in a high-stakes federal trial that accuses Page and Plant of lifting a riff from the obscure 1968 instrumental "Taurus" by the band Spirit. The estate of the late Spirit founder Randy Wolfe, also known as Randy California, is suing Page, Plant and their record label for copyright infringement.
The defense rested its case after the musicians testified. Jurors in U.S. District Court will hear closing arguments Wednesday.
Page and Plant tried to put further distance between themselves and the California band that blended a psychedelic mix of jazz and rock.
Plant, whose memory of creating "Stairway" was clear, claimed to recall very few encounters dating back to the band's early days.
Plant told a packed courtroom that he did not remember hanging out with members of the band Spirit after the American band played a Birmingham, England, show in 1970, though he said he and his wife were in a bad car wreck and he has no memory of the evening.
"I don't have a recollection of mostly anyone I've hung out with," Plant said as the courtroom roared with laughter. "In the chaos and hubbub, how are you going to remember one guy when you haven't seen him for 40 years."
Spirit's former bass player had testified to drinking beers with Plant and playing the billiards-like game snooker after a show at Mother's Club in 1970.
Plant had a much sharper memory of Headley Grange, where he said his goal was to evoke an image of pastoral Britain.
As Page played the opening, Plant said the lyrics he had been working on fit with the song: "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.
The other band members would make contributions and Plant would occasionally retreat to a bedroom with a notepad to work on more lyrics for what became an eight-minute song.
Musical experts for the Wolfe estate have said there were many similarities between "Taurus" and "Stairway," but defense experts played many other songs that they said had a common descending chord sequence used in songs for three centuries.
If the jury finds that the "Taurus" copyright was violated, jurors would have a wide range of damages to consider.
An expert for estate trustee Michael Skidmore, said Led Zeppelin work that included "Stairway" earned gross revenues of nearly $60 million in the past five years. Some of that work, however, included other songs and could be part of a 2008 deal that's outside the statute of limitations.
Defense experts offered much smaller figures focused solely on revenues from the song in its many forms – as a digital download, ringtones, streaming and as a fraction of multiple albums.
A British accountant testified Tuesday that the gross revenues Page and Plant received from "Stairway" during that time period amounted to just over $1 million.
An executive for Led Zeppelin's label, Rhino Entertainment Co., said the song earned $3 million in revenue and a net profit of $868,000 since 2011.
After 20 Years of Acting, Megan Park Finds Her Groove In The Director’s Chair On “My Old Ass”
Megan Park feels a little bad that her movie is making so many people cry. It's not just a single tear either โ more like full body sobs.
She didn't set out to make a tearjerker with "My Old Ass," now streaming on Prime Video. She just wanted to tell a story about a young woman in conversation with her older self. The film is quite funny (the dialogue between 18-year-old and almost 40-year-old Elliott happens because of a mushroom trip that includes a Justin Bieber cover), but it packs an emotional punch, too.
Writing, Park said, is often her way of working through things. When she put pen to paper on "My Old Ass," she was a new mom and staying in her childhood bedroom during the pandemic. One night, she and her whole nuclear family slept under the same roof. She didn't know it then, but it would be the last time, and she started wondering what it would be like to have known that.
In the film, older Elliott ( Aubrey Plaza ) advises younger Elliott ( Maisy Stella ) to not be so eager to leave her provincial town, her younger brothers and her parents and to slow down and appreciate things as they are. She also tells her to stay away from a guy named Chad who she meets the next day and discovers that, unfortunately, he's quite cute.
At 38, Park is just getting started as a filmmaker. Her first, "The Fallout," in which Jenna Ortega plays a teen in the aftermath of a school shooting, had one of those pandemic releases that didn't even feel real. But it did get the attention of Margot Robbie 's production company LuckyChap Entertainment, who reached out to Park to see what other ideas she had brewing.
"They were very instrumental in encouraging me to go with it," Park said. "They're just really even-keeled, good people, which makes... Read More