My son, Ben Slynkee Douglas sent me a text early me this morning. Have you heard Zep is getting sued for stealing the intro to Stairway to Heaven? Ben is a professional musician and DJ, and together, we have more than fifty years in show business between us. He steered me to this Washington Post article, and while thought-provoking, it makes some assumptions about the nature of music itself that, though common, are somewhat wrong-headed in my opinion. First, while the first five chords of the progression are the same, it resolves in a completely different manner, and the signature melody, both explicit and implied, is wholly absent. The portion that is the same is derived from a centuries-old genre of English folk music, and not the work of any one artist at all. The group Spirit was merely drawing on the same musical tradition. This brings me to my real point. Music is not an invention, its a conversation. Its a social undertaking, even when a solo performance draws on a body of previous work which goes back in an unbroken line to the first Homo Sapiens beating out a rhythm on a resonant stone or log with a stick. To call music black or white is to misunderstand what music is. Its a language. It doesnt belong to anyone because it belongs to everyone, and attempts to categorize it run counter to its very spirit. Music, like language, should be a vehicle for bringing people together, for erasing boundaries, not building walls. Most of the musicians I know and respect would agree with me. What we need is a different kind of support system which rewards artists for their seminal contributions to popular culture, then perhaps we wont be forced to turn on one another in order to scrape out a living. PEACE. bBd washingtonpost/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/05/21/does-led-zeppelin-owe-spirit-a-songwriting-credit-for-stairway-to-heaven/?tid=hp_mm
Posted on: Wed, 21 May 2014 16:48:34 +0000
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