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Who wrote the solo/break in Kashmir from 3:25-4:15


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2 hours ago, blindwillie127 said:

I think you've explained this perfectly. The key word was "embellish" which is basically what is done naturally, thats what all musicians do. Also, I seriously doubt JPJ was expecting to be credited for Kashmir after not getting credited for tracks like STH or RS, both of which I think JPJ contribution to was even more significant than Kashmir. Man, you listen to ALS and can't help but think that both JPJ and Bonham have to be credited as co-writer's of this song due to the obvious magnitude of their playing on it. But, they didn't write it. They sure as hell embellished the shit out of though, thats for sure. As usual. 

Exactly. Also, as I said earlier I think its likely JPJ improvised those parts in question in the OP , on the mellotron...they most likely were not written out. It's basically a solo. No composer credit for a nice solo. As someone else pointed out , JPJ had white a number of song credits, as did Bonzo, over 20. Not bad for a drummer! 

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If the view of arrangement verses songwriting credit was the same then Jones would have gotten songwriting credit on Donovan's record, REM's, Rolling Stones etc.

The Stairway intro with the mellotron could have been easily written by Page (he does play keyboards) along with the orchestration melody for The Rain Song and Kashmir. The only thing we can definitively go by is the publishing credits as written. 

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12 minutes ago, babysquid said:

No Mellotron on Stairway.

Maybe you're referring to the wooden recorders, which Jones played on the studio version. Live he used the mellotron. I think Jones said he came up with the recorder part and recorded each voice separately, overdubbing them. 

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17 hours ago, sixpense said:

The only thing we can definitively go by is the publishing credits as written. 

Speaking of which, notice that on Allmusic and elsewhere, Plant is now a writer on the first album, whereas on the originals he wasn't credited. This must have changed at some point but I have no idea when

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21 hours ago, porgie66 said:

Maybe you're referring to the wooden recorders, which Jones played on the studio version. Live he used the mellotron. I think Jones said he came up with the recorder part and recorded each voice separately, overdubbing them. 

Odds are it's the Mellotron (easier to play) but it could be the actual instrument. 

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16 hours ago, 76229 said:

Speaking of which, notice that on Allmusic and elsewhere, Plant is now a writer on the first album, whereas on the originals he wasn't credited. This must have changed at some point but I have no idea when

He still isn't credited on the recent remaster cd/lp.

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5 minutes ago, sixpense said:

Odds are it's the Mellotron (easier to play) but it could be the actual instrument. 

Nope, it is four different recorders played and overdubbed by Jones in the studio. This is per several interviews with Jones on the subject.

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On 8/18/2017 at 8:36 PM, sixpense said:

Odds are it's the Mellotron (easier to play) but it could be the actual instrument. 

It is clearly the actual instrument. Recorders have a definite timbre that a mellotron cannot replicate. You can practically hear Jones breathe blowing through on the album version of "Stairway to Heaven".

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On 8/18/2017 at 11:43 PM, IpMan said:

Nope, it is four different recorders played and overdubbed by Jones in the studio. This is per several interviews with Jones on the subject.

 

10 hours ago, Strider said:

It is clearly the actual instrument. Recorders have a definite timbre that a mellotron cannot replicate. You can practically hear Jones breathe blowing through on the album version of "Stairway to Heaven".

http://bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com/2011/11/led-zeppelin-stairway-to-heaven-song.html#axzz4qRcTzPW3

 

As with opinions, everyone is entitled to one.  :-)

 

A sample from youtube:  

 

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2 hours ago, sixpense said:

 

http://bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com/2011/11/led-zeppelin-stairway-to-heaven-song.html#axzz4qRcTzPW3

 

As with opinions, everyone is entitled to one.  :-)

 

A sample from youtube:  

 

Opinion has nothing to do with this. Jones himself stated, in several interviews, that he played recorders and overdubbed them on the studio version of STH. Why is this even being discussed? This was common knowledge in 1979 for crying out loud.

Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones recalled this presentation of the song to him following its genesis at Bron-Yr-Aur:

Page and Plant would come back from the Welsh mountains with the guitar intro and verse. I literally heard it in front of a roaring fire in a country manor house! I picked up a bass recorder and played a run-down riff which gave us an intro, then I moved into a piano for the next section, dubbing on the guitars.[11]

Written in the key of A minor, the song opens with an arpeggiated, finger-picked guitar chord progression with a chromatic descending bassline A-A♭-G-G♭-F. John Paul Jones contributed overdubbed wooden bass recorders in the opening section (he used a Mellotron and, later, a Yamaha CP70B Grand Piano and Yamaha GX1 to synthesise this arrangement in live performances)[12] and a Hohner Electra-Piano electric piano in the middle section.

  1.  Chris Welch (1994) Led Zeppelin, London: Orion Books. ISBN 1-85797-930-3, pp. 60–61.
  1.  Rolling Stone. "Stairway to Heaven". Retrieved 7 June 2006
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6 hours ago, IpMan said:

Opinion has nothing to do with this. Jones himself stated, in several interviews, that he played recorders and overdubbed them on the studio version of STH. Why is this even being discussed? This was common knowledge in 1979 for crying out loud.

Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones recalled this presentation of the song to him following its genesis at Bron-Yr-Aur:

Page and Plant would come back from the Welsh mountains with the guitar intro and verse. I literally heard it in front of a roaring fire in a country manor house! I picked up a bass recorder and played a run-down riff which gave us an intro, then I moved into a piano for the next section, dubbing on the guitars.[11]

Written in the key of A minor, the song opens with an arpeggiated, finger-picked guitar chord progression with a chromatic descending bassline A-A♭-G-G♭-F. John Paul Jones contributed overdubbed wooden bass recorders in the opening section (he used a Mellotron and, later, a Yamaha CP70B Grand Piano and Yamaha GX1 to synthesise this arrangement in live performances)[12] and a Hohner Electra-Piano electric piano in the middle section.

  1.  Chris Welch (1994) Led Zeppelin, London: Orion Books. ISBN 1-85797-930-3, pp. 60–61.
  1.  Rolling Stone. "Stairway to Heaven". Retrieved 7 June 2006

Yep! This ^

that Bobby Owsinski bit is just wrong ( he even concedes this maybe the case in the comments). Jonesy never used his rhodes in the studio as he preferred the Hohner piano but it was too fragile for Road use hence the Rhodes. The Mellotron was used live to get an approximation of the recorder sound on the record. 

However there is some confusion as it had been widely reported before that the studio cut used a Mellotron .

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12 hours ago, IpMan said:

Opinion has nothing to do with this. Jones himself stated, in several interviews, that he played recorders and overdubbed them on the studio version of STH. Why is this even being discussed? This was common knowledge in 1979 for crying out loud.

Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones recalled this presentation of the song to him following its genesis at Bron-Yr-Aur:

Page and Plant would come back from the Welsh mountains with the guitar intro and verse. I literally heard it in front of a roaring fire in a country manor house! I picked up a bass recorder and played a run-down riff which gave us an intro, then I moved into a piano for the next section, dubbing on the guitars.[11]

Written in the key of A minor, the song opens with an arpeggiated, finger-picked guitar chord progression with a chromatic descending bassline A-A♭-G-G♭-F. John Paul Jones contributed overdubbed wooden bass recorders in the opening section (he used a Mellotron and, later, a Yamaha CP70B Grand Piano and Yamaha GX1 to synthesise this arrangement in live performances)[12] and a Hohner Electra-Piano electric piano in the middle section.

  1.  Chris Welch (1994) Led Zeppelin, London: Orion Books. ISBN 1-85797-930-3, pp. 60–61.
  1.  Rolling Stone. "Stairway to Heaven". Retrieved 7 June 2006

I have seen the citations but can't find the original interviews. If you have a link please post.

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6 hours ago, babysquid said:

Yes he is. On my copy he is at least. Not on the cover but on the disc itself.

Plant is only on Babe I'm Gonna Leave You (which is actually written by someone else entirely) . He is not on any other of the tracks written by the rest of the band.

LZ1 Liner Note2.jpg

LZ1 Liner Note1.jpg

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It was the re-credit on BIGLY I meant. Though Plant also referred to himself "co-writing Communication Breakdown" in Barney Hoskyns' Trampled underfoot book, and that's still Page / Jones  / Bonham.

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5 hours ago, sixpense said:

I have seen the citations but can't find the original interviews. If you have a link please post.

Sorry, but I am not going to do everything for you. The citations are clear, I suggest you look up the interviews yourself from the citations and / or buy the book which was cited. Either way, I posted the actual words of Jones with the citation, if Jones own words will not convince you, nothing will.

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On ‎8‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 10:43 PM, IpMan said:

Nope, it is four different recorders played and overdubbed by Jones in the studio. This is per several interviews with Jones on the subject.

Had no interview ever existed which IpMan states  (which joggles my memory), John Paul Jones is clearly playing recorders in STH. Maybe tenor, alto, and possibly bass. I played bass recorder back in the day and there's no mistake to the atmosphere which these instruments provide. What's so amazing to me is that these instrument were never used to my knowledge in any other Zeppelin studio work, which further cements the immense talents this band possessed.
Stairway To Heaven without JPJ' recorder input I'm guessing, would relegate the song a few notches below the legendary status it rightly deserves.

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52 minutes ago, jabe said:

Had no interview ever existed which IpMan states  (which joggles my memory), John Paul Jones is clearly playing recorders in STH. Maybe tenor, alto, and possibly bass. I played bass recorder back in the day and there's no mistake to the atmosphere which these instruments provide. What's so amazing to me is that these instrument were never used to my knowledge in any other Zeppelin studio work, which further cements the immense talents this band possessed.
Stairway To Heaven without JPJ' recorder input I'm guessing, would relegate the song a few notches below the legendary status it rightly deserves.

You can actually hear his breaths at times. As good as it can sound, the mellotron would sound clearly synthetic if you could A/B it side by side with harmonized wooden recorders. 

Seeing as this went a bit off topic, I would just say Jones "wrote " the part the OP questions in this thread title, but he likely composed it i.e. improvised it during rehearsals or through the takes. He tended to play a similar thematic variation live , but never exactly the same. Something he does on many, many tunes....i.e. Stairway, Rain Song , All My Love.

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On 8/21/2017 at 6:49 PM, sixpense said:

 

http://bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com/2011/11/led-zeppelin-stairway-to-heaven-song.html#axzz4qRcTzPW3

 

As with opinions, everyone is entitled to one.  :-)

 

A sample from youtube:  

 

Sorry. It's not an opinion. It's a fact. Recorders were used on the studio version intro. You don't get to make up what instruments were used on a given song. Besides, you would have to be deaf to think that mellotron clip you posted sounded anything like Jones' recorded part on the intro to "Stairway to Heaven". The mellotron wheezes. The recorder breathes.

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15 hours ago, sixpense said:

Plant is only on Babe I'm Gonna Leave You (which is actually written by someone else entirely) . He is not on any other of the tracks written by the rest of the band.

LZ1 Liner Note2.jpg

LZ1 Liner Note1.jpg

That's interesting. I've only got the vinyl and he is credited. As for BIGLY they originally thought it was a traditional tune and it is quite different musically and lyrically  from the Joan Baez version that inspired it.

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11 hours ago, babysquid said:

That's interesting. I've only got the vinyl and he is credited. As for BIGLY they originally thought it was a traditional tune and it is quite different musically and lyrically  from the Joan Baez version that inspired it.

Page and Plant somehow got songwriting credits for a change in arrangement of the song.

I checked my remastered vinyl as well and Plant has songwriting credits. Odd.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Thread has gone off topic slightly, I will say I would love some interviewer to ask Page or Jones the truth about this particular stretch of possibly their most bombastic song, even as Stairways is their most iconic.

Speaking of Stairways, in response to some of the discussion on the subject; I am sure I read somewhere that at least in regards to the flute that they are the real wood instruments in the song.  Page felt that only the real instrument would suffice, he clearly had the foresight in regards to how important this song would be.

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On 13/09/2017 at 5:06 PM, Canadianzepper said:

Thread has gone off topic slightly, I will say I would love some interviewer to ask Page or Jones the truth about this particular stretch of possibly their most bombastic song, even as Stairways is their most iconic.

Speaking of Stairways, in response to some of the discussion on the subject; I am sure I read somewhere that at least in regards to the flute that they are the real wood instruments in the song.  Page felt that only the real instrument would suffice, he clearly had the foresight in regards to how important this song would be.

Yes they are real and they are recorders not flutes. Regarding Page feeling only a real instrument would suffice, I have no idea but if you read some of the pre Zeppelin interviews where he talks about the band he wants to form he's very keen on having a dedicated Mellotron player. 

I think the recorders might have been just there. I have this image of Jonesy turning up to every studio session with an Aladin's cave of instruments in a sack just in case.

i also have a feeling that the Mellotron was bought after the recording sessions to facilitate performing stairway live.

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