That’s A Cover? explores cover songs that you may have thought were originals.
If Led Zeppelin had made Physical Graffiti a single album rather than a double, “Boogie with Stu” would not have made the final cut. “Filler” is a dismissive term, but that’s what it was. (Of course, one band’s filler is another band’s gem.) The song was just a spontaneous jam, really, recorded in 1971 on an out-of-tune piano as they worked on Led Zeppelin IV. But when Zeppelin suddenly had an extra album-side to complete in 1975, they cleaned up the old recording and tossed the result onto side four, practically as an afterthought.
“Boogie with Stu” is treated like an afterthought, too, in those always-interesting and usually contentious discussions about Zeppelin covering and plagiarizing other artists. Sure, let’s talk “Dazed and Confused” and Jake Holmes, “Whole Lotta Love” and Willie Dixon, “The Lemon Song” and Chester Burnett, and all the other cases. But the discussion rarely gets around to the strange case of “Boogie with Stu” and Ritchie Valens. Or if it does, it’s only as an afterthought yet again.
Even die-hard Led Heads seem unaware that the song is a cover—that’s part of the problem. But it takes the melody and lyrics almost verbatim from “Ooh, My Head,” a modest hit for Ritchie Valens in 1958. Here is the Valens original to prove it (and yes, that’s Chuck Berry giving the intro):
Hearing the original can have a twin effect: it can renew your respect for Valens and the vitality of early rock pioneers, and it can reenforce your appreciation for Zeppelin’s originality. You wouldn’t expect a pounding piano to pair well with the gentle mandolin, but the combo sounds fresh to this day. Bonham’s chill groove bears no resemblance to the frantic pulse that Earl Palmer brought to the Valens hit, but it’s irresistible. (Palmer was basically the first great rock and roll drummer, and one of Bonham’s main inspirations.)
“Boogie with Stu” offers the rare example of Zeppelin at least trying to give songwriting credit where credit was due, with no court order to force their hand. The credits read “John Bonham/John Paul Jones/Jimmy Page/Robert Plant/Ian Stewart/Mrs. Valens.”¹
About that “Mrs. Valens” business: Jimmy Page stated that the idea behind “Mrs. Valens” was for the royalties to go to someone still alive and able to enjoy them. Valens himself had died in 1959, a victim of the plane crash that also took the lives of Buddy Holly, J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson Jr., and the plane’s pilot. Valens was only 17 years old when he died; he was already famous for “La Bamba,” one of the first great rock covers of a traditional song. Additionally, Page claimed that Valens’ mother had never received proper royalty payments from her late son’s recordings.
Kemo Music—owners of the publishing rights to “Ooh, My Head”—thought differently about these matters. They sued Led Zeppelin over it, arguing that Valens ought to have been given full credit. The parties quickly settled out of court. Although the settlement is not a matter of public record, we can see that on the most recent re-issues of Physical Graffiti (and on the streaming platforms) the credits for “Boogie with Stu” are unchanged. They still say “Mrs. Valens.” In that regard, the song remains the same. (Sorry.)
The origin story doesn’t end there. Valens himself had a model in mind when he composed “Ooh, My Head,” namely Little Richard’s “Ooh! My Soul.” Maybe Zeppelin’s legal team brought up this very point in discussions with Kemo Music. Jimmy Page brings it up in at least one published interview.
Valens was known early on as the “Little Richard of San Fernando.” Far from hiding the influence, Valens flaunts it: in the first verse of “Ooh, My Head” he calls out Richard’s massive hit “Tutti Frutti.” The song implies that Valens is the new kid in town, and the days are numbered for figures like Little Richard and Buddy Holly. (The Buddy Holly reference comes in the last verse, which Zeppelin omitted from their rendition of the song.) Then of course, there’s the plainly parallel song titles.
Listen to Richard’s “Ooh! My Soul,” and judge for yourself whether Valens was infringing on copyright, or simply paying tribute to his hero, or both at once.
Say what you will, but Little Richard never took legal action against Valens for any musical resemblances between the two songs. Was that due to Valens’ tragic death? Or Richard’s departure from the music industry in ’57? Maybe. But it could have more to do with the culture: in the ’50s, artists regularly repurposed riffs, melodies, and lyrical phrases from other sources without much controversy or legal teams getting involved. Artists were also relatively unaware of their rights at that stage (and often that was intentional, making things easier for less-than-ethical business managers). That all changed—along with copyright law—by the ’70s, as Led Zeppelin found out.
Footnotes:
1. Ian “Stu” Stewart usually gets overlooked, just like the song named after him. A founding member of the Rolling Stones ought to have better name recognition. He shouldn’t be a footnote.
Although demoted to road manager and sometimes-pianist for the Stones, Stewart lent his boogie-woogie stylings to all of the band’s albums and tours up to his death in 1985. He also designed and built the band’s legendary Mobile Recording Studio (with help from Glyn Johns).
He played well with others: for example, he rocks out on Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll” from their untitled fourth album, though he was uncredited. It was during that same session that Stu jammed on the Valens song. When the band later renamed it “Boogie with Stu” for Physical Graffiti, it may have been compensatory for Zeppelin’s failure to note Stu’s contribution to “Rock and Roll.” Or the title may have been Zeppelin’s way to put distance between their song and the Ritchie Valens original. In any case, that was a pretty good day of recording for Ian Stewart, who was only there in his capacity as driver of the Rolling Stones Mobile Recording Studio that Zeppelin hired.
