Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven trial on

Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and Robert Plant appeared in court on Tuesday to deny accusations that they “lifted” the opening bars to iconic rock song Stairway to Heaven.

The musicians, dressed in black suits, arrived to a throng of reporters at Los Angeles federal court, where a jury of four men and four women was played their anthemic hit.

Spirit, a psychedelic LA band that enjoyed a niche following, but never attained the superstardom of Zeppelin, claims the melancholic guitar that opens Stairway was taken from its instrumental track Taurus.

Spirit’s guitarist Randy Wolfe — who went by the nickname Randy California — never took legal action and drowned in Hawaii in 1997, but a lawsuit was filed by his trustee and friend Michael Skidmore, who was in court.

“This case can be summarised in six words: Give credit where credit is due,” said Francis Malofiy, Skidmore’s attorney.

Malofiy told the jury it could look at the lawsuit “almost like a taste test,” asking: “Do these things taste the same Do these things sound the same ”

The attorney played a recording for the jury of the introduction to Stairway, describing the arpeggio as a “lifted composition.”

At issue is whether Led Zeppelin had access to 1967’s Taurus before recording Stairway in London in December 1970 and January 1971.

Zeppelin opened for Spirit when the hard British rockers — Plant, Page, John Paul Jones and the since deceased John Bonham — made their US debut on December 26, 1968 in Denver. But surviving members of Led Zeppelin have submitted testimony that they never had substantive interaction with Spirit or listened to the band’s music.

Defence attorney Peter Anderson told jurors that Page, 72, and Plant, 67, were not familiar with Spirit or its output, and that Page had no recollection of ever hearing Taurus. Anderson played the first two minutes and 14 seconds of Stairway as Page nodded along.

“Stairway to Heaven was written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant and them alone, period,” Anderson said.

Skidmore has not specified the damages he is seeking, but various stories in the music press have posited a possible settlement at anywhere between a symbolic $1 plus a writing credit to as much as $40 million.