Once again Jake Holmes is suing Jimmy Page over "Dazed and Confused."
Due to the use of the song in the new Led Zeppelin documentary "Becoming Led Zeppelin," Holmes is suing both Page and Sony Pictures for not crediting Holmes in the film.
The complaint was filed in California federal court for copyright infringement and breach of contract, as two live recordings of the song were included in the movie without permission or payment.
Now for those who don't know the great story of Dazed and Confused, the song was originally written and recorded by Holmes in 1967. Holmes and his trio opened for The Yarbirds on what would be their last US tour. Jimmy Page was now the solo guitarist in the band, due to their firing of Jeff Beck, and he brought about a more lucrative success when the band fired their manager Giorgio Gomelsky, and hired Page's manager Peter Grant.
Jim McCarty initially heard the song,
"I wandered backstage to watch the support act and heard some quite pleasant folky songs," McCarty added. "Then they played this song in a minor key with a very haunting guitar run down, and I immediately thought it would suit us. I went down to a record store in Greenwich Village, bought Jake's album, and we worked out our version — later to be recorded by Zeppelin, becoming one of the classics of all time."
The Yardbirds would make the song rock more in their version of it as Holmes' was acoustic, and Page would add a solo where he famously uses a violin bow on his electric guitar to create a sound never heard in music. When the tour ended and the band would find itself going their separate ways, Page would end up with the remaining Yardbirds shows dates and a live hit in their rendition of Dazed And Confused. Page would create Led Zeppelin and rework the song again, as he recorded it for their classic debut album.
Holmes filed a copyright infringement suit in 2011 after Page took sole credit over the decades, first with the Yardbirds and then with Led Zeppelin. Holmes' complaint was that Page has released several other live versions of "Dazed and Confused" without proper credit or payment, including on Yardbirds '68, Live at the BBC Revisited, and The Yardbirds: The Ultimate Live at the BBC, among others. He's requesting damages of at least $150,000 per instance of copyright infringement.
It's most likely that Sony and Page will eventually settle with Holmes.