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Willie Dixon


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Please forgive me if this has been answered, I tried searching and failed to find the answer.

Led Zeppelin released Whole Lotta Love in 1969, failing to credit Willie Dixon regarding lyric content. To my knowledge, the band and Dixon became friends during the 70's with no issue arising from the copyright credits re: Whole Lotta Love. In 1985 Dixon sues the band for lack of songwriting credit on WLL. So here is my question: Dixon is considered one of the sharpest business men in the industry, why in hell did he wait 16 years to file suit? How could this have not come up during their friendship in the 70's? What exactly precipitated the lawsuit in the first place 16 years after the fact?

I don't know about anyone else but if I wrote a song which a later band covered and they became rich off of it without crediting me, I would sue them ASAP, not wait 16 years. I sure as hell would not have become friends with the band if I was butt hurt about the song. The whole incident just does not make any sense.

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I'm no expert and I'm commuting so I don't have my books handy, but if memory serves, it wasn't Willie Dixon himself, but his family or the Publishing House that owned the rights to his songs that sued Led Zeppelin. In fact, I think Willie himself received very little money from the settlement and ended up suing the Publishing Co. to get his fair share of the cut.

I'm sure Sam or Steve could give a more detailed and accurate answer. As I said, I'm on the subway far away from my books.

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To clear up a few myths:

1. the band was never "friends" with Dixon. I'm not sure if they had any relationship at all.

2. Dixon claims that he never heard "Whole Lotta Love" prior to 1984.

3. Dixon's publisher (ARC Music) had previously sued over "Bring It On Home", but they never sued over "Whole Lotta Love".

4. Dixon sued ARC Music in the '70s for failing to pay royalties, but it was for hundreds of songs (not just "Bring It On Home").

I'm not sure if Dixon ever knew that Zep covered part of "Bring It On Home".

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To clear up a few myths:

1. the band was never "friends" with Dixon. I'm not sure if they had any relationship at all.

2. Dixon claims that he never heard "Whole Lotta Love" prior to 1984.

3. Dixon's publisher (ARC Music) had previously sued over "Bring It On Home", but they never sued over "Whole Lotta Love".

4. Dixon sued ARC Music in the '70s for failing to pay royalties, but it was for hundreds of songs (not just "Bring It On Home").

I'm not sure if Dixon ever knew that Zep covered part of "Bring It On Home".

Links?

Btw: I always got the last part (4) mixed up with Howlin' Wolf and "Killing Floor"/"The Lemon Song."

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'The Lemon Song' completely destroys 'Killing Floor', and I think some lyrics were taken from other songs, too. Robert Johnson, or Blind Lemon Jefferson, or someone like that

The general "lemon" motif is pretty standard. I was referring to the suit Arc had against Zeppelin in Burnett's favour.

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To clear up a few myths:

1. the band was never "friends" with Dixon. I'm not sure if they had any relationship at all.

2. Dixon claims that he never heard "Whole Lotta Love" prior to 1984.

3. Dixon's publisher (ARC Music) had previously sued over "Bring It On Home", but they never sued over "Whole Lotta Love".

4. Dixon sued ARC Music in the '70s for failing to pay royalties, but it was for hundreds of songs (not just "Bring It On Home").

I'm not sure if Dixon ever knew that Zep covered part of "Bring It On Home".

Regarding #2...Willie Dixon claimed it was his daughter who brought to his attention the song's similarities to his own.

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Links?

Btw: I always got the last part (4) mixed up with Howlin' Wolf and "Killing Floor"/"The Lemon Song."

ARC Music was publisher for both "Killing Floor" and "Bring It On Home". They sued over both songs in 1972, then kept all the royalties.

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Hmmm, very interesting, and thank you for all the great information. Not sure if I believe it took his daughter or anyone else 15 years to figure it out since WLL was a monster tune and played everywhere in 69'. Then there were all the bluesman tours of the UK in the late 60's and early 70's where these guys were all hanging out with Clapton and the like. You would have thought old Eric would have been, "...hey Willie, ever hear WLL??? I think the lyrics may sound familiar..."

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Hmmm, very interesting, and thank you for all the great information. Not sure if I believe it took his daughter or anyone else 15 years to figure it out since WLL was a monster tune and played everywhere in 69'. Then there were all the bluesman tours of the UK in the late 60's and early 70's where these guys were all hanging out with Clapton and the like. You would have thought old Eric would have been, "...hey Willie, ever hear WLL??? I think the lyrics may sound familiar..."

Odds are Willie nicked part of the lyrics himself from an earlier blues tune. If you listen to enough blues, after awhile you begin to see how incestuous the blues are, with songs lifted from all sorts of sources, to the point that a song like "Gallows Pole" or "Boll Weevil" goes through many mutations.

Hell, many blues songs were black adaptations of Olde English, Scottish, or Irish ballads and troubadour songs brought over by the English settlers in the 15th and 16th centuries. "Gallows Pole" is one such example...it's from an old English tune called "Gallis Pole".

The British blues bands were simply covering blues songs that were themselves sometimes derived from the English troubadours of old.

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All this speculation of how Zeppelin "ripped off" other artists by using their songs as a springboard for Zeppelin

songs or lyrics...it's all bullshit. Nothing falls on Zeppelin - legally. All the legal matters of copy infringement falls

directly on the lawyers for Atlantic Records who signed Zeppelin to their recording contract.

When Zeppelin 1 or II was released do people actually think it was Zeppelin's motive to release songs that copied

other blues artists to some extent or another? Hell no! But Atlantic exec's , including Ahmet , knew that these songs

had made references to previously released material. The Atlantic legal teams knew but let the records go public

with no credit to the original artists and in turn, no royalty payments to the artists neither! Atlantic made a killing

profit wise so they just turned their heads. It wasn't until years later that it bit them in the ass but it also gave Zeppelin

a very bad rap as well.

Bottom line is that Zeppelin did make reference to songs by other artists, esp the blues , but Atlantic let them go

public with no limits or restrictions by the AR Legal brain trusts. They should have known better!

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All this speculation of how Zeppelin "ripped off" other artists by using their songs as a springboard for Zeppelin

songs or lyrics...it's all bullshit. Nothing falls on Zeppelin - legally. All the legal matters of copy infringement falls

directly on the lawyers for Atlantic Records who signed Zeppelin to their recording contract.

When Zeppelin 1 or II was released do people actually think it was Zeppelin's motive to release songs that copied

other blues artists to some extent or another? Hell no! But Atlantic exec's , including Ahmet , knew that these songs

had made references to previously released material. The Atlantic legal teams knew but let the records go public

with no credit to the original artists and in turn, no royalty payments to the artists neither! Atlantic made a killing

profit wise so they just turned their heads. It wasn't until years later that it bit them in the ass but it also gave Zeppelin

a very bad rap as well.

Bottom line is that Zeppelin did make reference to songs by other artists, esp the blues , but Atlantic let them go

public with no limits or restrictions by the AR Legal brain trusts. They should have known better!

Led Zeppelin also insisted upon unprecedented artistic control. You can't have it both ways when it comes to artistic integrity.

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Demand unprecedented in the history of music...

:veryhot:

Not Willie Dixon or anyone who came before Led Zeppelin or since occupies this space... in live or recorded performance.

I enjoy delta blues and old, old southern black Gospel and respect it so. LZ are not boys from England covering these and spinning them. Demand unprecedented- for this, no one has a response.

This is the 51st country... << cue hi-hats 5..4..3..2..1open...>>

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Willie Dixon doing his thing...

a friend sent me this link

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Led Zeppelin also insisted upon unprecedented artistic control. You can't have it both ways when it comes to artistic integrity.

They truly didn't achieve artistic control until LZ III - before that they still had to bow to Atlantic and their interests. One being

quick cash despite the legal issues.

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To clear up a few myths:

1. the band was never "friends" with Dixon. I'm not sure if they had any relationship at all.

Not sure that's true Scott. I recall an interview with Robert Plant where he talked about having dinner with the Dixon family in the 1970s. I can't recall the exact source but it may have been in a magazine circa 1990s. Jimmy Page and Robert Plant also paid Dixon a visit in hospital when his right foot was amputated in 1977, due to diabetes. This is from my newspaper clippings collection:

Source: Chicago Times, 18 August 1977

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Please forgive me if this has been answered, I tried searching and failed to find the answer.

Led Zeppelin released Whole Lotta Love in 1969, failing to credit Willie Dixon regarding lyric content. To my knowledge, the band and Dixon became friends during the 70's with no issue arising from the copyright credits re: Whole Lotta Love. In 1985 Dixon sues the band for lack of songwriting credit on WLL. So here is my question: Dixon is considered one of the sharpest business men in the industry, why in hell did he wait 16 years to file suit? How could this have not come up during their friendship in the 70's? What exactly precipitated the lawsuit in the first place 16 years after the fact?

I don't know about anyone else but if I wrote a song which a later band covered and they became rich off of it without crediting me, I would sue them ASAP, not wait 16 years. I sure as hell would not have become friends with the band if I was butt hurt about the song. The whole incident just does not make any sense.

He did n't sue the Small Faces who credited a straight cover of You Need Love as a Marriott/Lane song ,Though you can see where Planty may have borrowed his vocal delivery from

Though it was claimed that Dixon used to get session players to write songs and quite heavy handedly claim credit as his ,as payment for future session work bookings, a bit like elvis presley used to get unknown songwriters to give him a songwriters co-credit in return for the sales he could generate, Dolly Parton told him to stick it when he suggested a co-write on a song she wrote for him

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I think Page felt he "revamped" it to the point of being original, and had already given Dixon credit on "You Shook Me" and "I Can't Quit You Baby". I think most people would've been fine with that. And we have to remember Plant didn't get songwriting credit off the first album for a while, so he got "ripped off" as well.

I remember it was brought up in "Cadillac Records", but no one put a You Tube clip of it up. Also have to remember Dixon had a pretty big stake in Chess Records, even though they may have taken artistic liberties of when the "discovery" happened.

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I remember it was brought up in "Cadillac Records", but no one put a You Tube clip of it up. Also have to remember Dixon had a pretty big stake in Chess Records, even though they may have taken artistic liberties of when the "discovery" happened.

I wouldn't trust 'Cadillac Records' as historical truth. I was disappointed with it when I saw it in the cinemas back in 2008. You may wish to read this review by Robert Wilonsky:

http://www.houstonpress.com/2008-12-04/film/cadillac-records-can-t-handle-the-truth/

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For the record.. Bring It On Home was Sonny Boy Williamson II, not Willie.

Willie wrote 'you need love', muddy waters performed it. Zep borrowed a bit of it.

Lemon Song does not destroy Killing Floor, you can't 'destroy' a previous form of music that help create the next, jackass.

Good topic, Blues and Zep.

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I think Page felt he "revamped" it to the point of being original, and had already given Dixon credit on "You Shook Me" and "I Can't Quit You Baby". I think most people would've been fine with that. And we have to remember Plant didn't get songwriting credit off the first album for a while, so he got "ripped off" as well.

Jimmy knew the point of contention with WLL was lyrical content. IMHO, Dixon should have been properly credited at the time.

Robert did not receive songwriting credits on the first album because Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You was credited as "Trad. arr. Page" to avoid paying royalties to Joan Baez.

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The BIGLY writing credit wasn't meant to "avoid" paying royalties to John Baez. It was credited as "Trad" simply because that's how it had been credited by other artists. Very few people knew about the song's true author (Anne Bredon) prior to 1990. Joan Baez didn't even know who she was.

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