Jimmy Page has another lawsuit on his hands. This time it’s regarding the songwriting credits to ‘Dazed And Confused’.
Musician Jake Holmes filed the lawsuit. He wrote the original track (below) in 1967 and is said to have inspired Led Zeppelin‘s song of the same name.
Holmes says Page heard the song in the summer of ’67 when he opened for Page’s other band, The Yardbirds.
The Yardbirds had a version of Dazed and Confused, playing it regularly at their shows. They didn’t record a version in studio, but there’s live recordings from 1967/68 kickin’ around.
And of course Zeppelin did a version, which sounds like Jake Holmes’ original. Sure, new lyrics and instrumentation, but over you can hear it. Right?
In 2010, Holmes filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Page, and the decided-out-of-court settlement led to the songwriting credit on the Led Zeppelin version being updated to “inspired by Jake Holmes”.
Now, Holmes says he hasn’t been given credit nor royalties for the early versions of ‘Dazed And Confused’ by The Yardbirds. The lawsuit spotlights the new film “Becoming Led Zeppelin”, which has the Led Zeppelin version credited as “inspired by Jake Holmes”, but The Yardbirds version as only “written by Jimmy Page”.
“The Yardbirds’ performance of ‘Dazed and Confused’ in the film is a performance of the Holmes Composition,” reads the filing. “Defendants have thus committed multiple acts of willful infringement by continuing to use the Holmes Composition without authorization and in the face of both specific knowledge of Plaintiff’s rights and Plaintiff’s cease and desist demand.”
Seems to me that Jimmy may need to update the writing credit for The Yardbirds, no?
