[ARSCLIST] true adventures in the music biz

[Dick Spottswood <dick@xxxxxxxx>]

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03/25/2006 05:20 PM

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George Harrison & The Chiffons at bottom






By KEITH BRUCE  March 13, 2006

It's The Same Old Song (BBC Radio2, Tuesday) was also right on the button, 
but rather more serendipitously. In his usual cheeky-chappie style, Mark 
Riley is looking at instances of plagiarism in popular music over four 
shows, produced by Ian Callaghan. Starting from the premise that there are 
only 12 notes, 26 letters and seven plots, Riley wondered that accusations 
of poetic larceny were not even more common, and then produced a long list 
of entertaining examples to show how regularly they crop up. With Da Vinci 
Code author Dan Brown defending his orginality in a London court, the 
series is certainly timely.
It was also funny in its insistence that no-one is guiltless. So, the same 
Chuck Berry who claimed royalties from Brian Wilson when he pinched a riff 
for The Beach Boys' Surfin USA, was described as a "former hairdresser" 
who had "borrowed" the famous guitar intro to Johnny B Goode from Louis 
Jordan's guitarist.
A couple of figures from the British blues scene turned up to defend their 
own conduct. 
Jeff Beck reasonably pointed out that forgotten blues musicians were given 
a new lease of life 
and a pretty penny or two by the patronage of white players, and our own 
Jack Bruce recalled being surprised to hear Otis Spann play Cream 
arrangements of his own songs. 
The terminology of the whole business was an entertainmentin itself – one 
person's culture mining is another person's copyright infringement, and 
the legal eagles are kept in Mercedes coupes by the grey area between an 
original work and an idea – but the best bits of the show were the playing 
of suspiciously similar tunes back to back.
So, Led Zeppelin were clearly bang to rights for lifting Willie Dixon's 
song to make Whole Lotta Love (he settled out of court), and Pachelbel's 
Canon was revealed as the raw material for The Farm's All Together Now and 
Elvis Costello's No Action.
The great tale of George Harrison's My Sweet Lord was saved till last. 
Harrison's defence, bizarrely, was that he had ripped off the Edwin 
Hawkins Singers' O Happy Day, rather than The Chiffons' He's So Fine, 
despite the melodious evidence.
Riley, however, missed two great codicils to the story. The girl group 
later cashed in on the court case by recording My Sweet Lord and, later 
still, Harrison used some of his Beatles money to buy a publishing 
company. In its catalogue was, yes indeed, The Chiffons' He's So Fine.

The Herald
www.theherald.co.uk/features/57761-print.shtml