The Stairway Trial Day 4

“I rest my case”

Day 4

Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones took the stand on Friday and was asked questions about a BBC interview from 1972 and where the idea for the bass line from Stairway to Heaven came from. He  consistently could not recall many details of the questions, John Paul Jones also claimed that he had never seen any band live in concert and had never heard spirit live therefore could not have known the bass line for the song before coming up with the idea himself.

 The defense was shot down after a few attempts to get a “gotcha” moment, the first was when lawyer Peter Anderson brought up Randy Wolfes illegitimate son and questioned his cut of the royalties. The second was when Anderson tried to play a video of the band Heart covering Stairway to Heaven at the Kennedy Center honors in 2012 trying to draw a line between that performance and the original recording. But the judge did not allow it.

The defense also called Dr. Lawrence Ferrara, professor of music and “director emeritus” at NYU who spent most of his time on the stand explaining more music theory and confusion us with big words and the differences is chord progression.

At the end of the day the Plaintiff rested their case.