TONIGHT!! - SOUNDS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT ON RADIO 2

I will join the pride of Manchester, England Pete Mitchell on his BBC Radio 2 show tonight at around 10:30 EDT. Listen live here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/

Dazed and Confused: The Evolution of a Classic

I'd always heard that Led Zeppelin's Dazed and Confused had been "inspired" by an obscure song written and recorded by Jake Holmes on this 1967 album The Above Ground Sound of Jake Holmes, released on Tower Records, a Columbia subsidiary.

Holmes shared a bill with Jimmy Page's Yardbirds at New York City's Village Theater in August, 1967 and that's when Holmes claims Page was first exposed to Dazed and Confused. Finally hearing the Holmes track confirms that the songs share similar melodies, descending bass lines and lyrics. Page took the sole composers credit when Zeppelin released Dazed and Confused on their first album. This was possibly due to the fact that the lyrics have been changed and the arrangement has been embellished and expanded.



A missing link between the Holmes version and Zeppelin's can be heard in this clip of the Yardbirds performing Dazed and Confused from French TV in March, 1968. Note that the lyrics adhere to Holmes version, while the musical elements of what would become Zeppelin's version are already apparent.

It's also interesting to hear the late Yardbirds lead singer Keith Relf s vocals on the song rather than Robert Plant's. Released decades later this version was credited to "Holmes: arr. Yardbirds."





Holmes has had a successful and varied career which has included writing songs for Sinatra's Watertown album (a neglected gem in the Chairman's catalog),and the Four Seasons Genuine Imitation Life Gazette. He's also written numerous ad jingles including "Be all that you can be" for the U.S. Army. Although he wrote a letter to Zeppelin's publisher regarding Dazed and Confused during the 1980s, he said he never received an response. He's never taken any further legal action in the matter.

Revealed: The Nirvana-Boston Connection

This clip from the UK Reading Festival in 1992 reveals that Nirvana were well aware of the similarities between the guitar parts in Smells Like Teen Spirit and Boston's More Than a Feeling. It also shows that Kurt had a sense of humor about himself. Kurt leads the band into Boston's FM radio staple before launching into Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Sounds Like Teen Spirit recounts that the guys in Nirvana thought that the guitar pattern in Smells Like Teen Spirit sounded "so much like Louie Louie or a Boston riff" when Kurt first played it for them. How ironic that the crunching riff that introduced most of the world to Nirvana and changed the course of pop music in 1991 had its roots in Boston's AOR classic.

Dylan: Old Habits Die Hard?

Here's and amusing story showing that what was thought to be a revelatory poem by a teenage Bob Dylan is actually his (slight) revision to the lyrics of Hank Snow's song Little Buddy. It seems Dylan discovered the joys of "creative borrowing" when he was still a teenager. Note that Dylan subsequently covered Snow's (Now and Then There's) A Fool Such as I during the 1967 Basement Tapes sessions. A 1969 outtake of the song appears on the now-deleted Dylan album released in 1973.

Dylan Channels Otis Rush on Beyond Here Lies Nothin'

Another Dylan album and some more re-writes of old blues songs. While 2006's Modern Times featured updates of The Levee's Gonna Break and Rollin' and Tumblin', the first track the new Together Through Life is Beyond Here Lies Nothin', which is Otis Rush's 1958 song All Your Love with new words.

Dylan's failure to credit Rush as the author of Beyond Here Lies Nothin' is strange given that Willie Dixon is credited as co-author of My Wife's Home Town, a Together track that borrows the melody of Dixon's much covered (Foghat, the Stones) I Just Want to Make Love to You. Could the discrepancy have anything to do with the fact that Dixon and his heirs have successfully fought to see him properly credited on the songs (including Whole Lotta Love) that Led Zeppelin tried to nick from him?

Since Rush is still with us and All Your Love is still under copyright, it'll be interesting to see if any legal action transpires. Here's the awesome cover of All Your Love by John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton:



...and Beyond Here Lies Nothin', (note the guitar solo's similarity to Clapton's):

Freddie Lennon

One of the more intriguing cases. John Lennon's dad Alfred "Freddie" Lennon had been long estranged from his son when he recorded That's My Life (My Love and My Home) in 1965. More a recital with music than an actual song, Freddie relates an autobiographical tale about his life as a merchant seaman. Incredibly, the song shares a chord structure and stately tone with John's Imagine, recorded some six years later.

The title of Freddie's song may have been a play on John's In My Life, which had just been released on the Beatles Rubber Soul album.

John patched up his relationship with Freddie not long after That's My Life was released and Freddie moved into John's home for a period of time.

John was certainly aware of his father's record. Some of John's biographers say he tried to suppress That's My Life by urging radio stations not to play it. It's not as though That's My Life was destined for the top of the charts anyway! There is also a story that John used to play That's My Life for friends as a laugh.

Freddie went on to remarry and father two sons. After another long period of estrangement he spoke to John shortly before his death in 1976.

Here's Freddie with That's My Life and the 45 B-side The Next Time You Feel Important. Listen closely to the opening chords of That's My Life and note the similarities with John's Imagine.


More on Freddie's very colorful life at the Lennon Family site.

Cat Stevens: Let's Wait and See on Coldplay Suit

The Coldplay Vida la Vida controversy gets curiouser by the day. Now Yusuf Islam (formerly known as Cat Stevens) has commented on the similarities between the Grammy-winning Song of the Year and his own 1973 recording Foreigner Suite. Foreigner Suite is a twenty minute piece and the section in question is about sixteen minutes in.

Islam finds that Vida la Vida "definitely" sounds like his song. He is not taking any action now while he awaits the disposition of Joe Satriani's suit against Coldplay over the same song. Recall that Satriani sued Coldplay in December claiming that Vida la Vida infringes the copyright of his 2004 instrumental If I Could Fly.

Here's a You Tube clip comparing Vida la Vida and Foreigner Suite:

Coldplay drummer Will Champion has responded to Islam's charges with a denial, using the shopworn "there are only so many notes" arguement. Champion is correct in his claim that the fact that the album Vida la Vida was the best-selling album in the world in 2008 is not incidental in the plagiarism claims being made against the band.

Coldplay will probably have an easier time defending against potential legal action by Islam than they will fighting off Satriani. To my ears Vida La Vida sounds very similar to If I Could Fly while the connection with Foreigner Suite is not as pronounced.

Readers of Sounds Like Teen Spirit will recall that Stevens successfully sought publishing royalties for the Flaming Lips song Fight Test because of its similarities to his 1971 song Father and Son. More on that case in a future post.