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Too close to be an accident

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In another post there was much talk about copying or plagiarism or call it what you will.
The one is too close to call and don’t ever recall seeing any credits but here is Horace Silver
doing a cracking copy of Rikki don’t lose my number:

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Comments

  3. Steely Dan readily admitted the inspiration for Rikki Don’t Lose That Number was Horace Silver. An inspired repurposing of that riff, if you ask me. I hear they claimed it was a tribute to him.
    It certainly worked as my route to Horace Silver’s music, once I realised it’s origin.

  4. And here’s Keith Jarrett copying “Gaucho” (with Jan Garbarek):

    Becker and Fagen were interviewed in 1981 (so this is quite old news) by David Breskin who asked about the similarity to Jarrett’s tune. Fagen said “We were heavily influenced by that particular piece of music . . . hell, we steal. We’re the robber barons of rock and roll!” That quote helped Jarrett sue to get a belated co-write credit.

    But I think Fagen always denied stealing the Horace Silver intro – he maintained that the “Rikki” track was built on a commonplace Brazilian bass line. For example, this is from an interview with Marc Myers in 2011:

    “MM: Was Horace Silver a major influence?
    DF: How do you mean?
    MM: I hear Peg in Outlaw and Aja in Moon Rays. Or am I hearing things?
    DF: Interesting. There was no thought of that.
    MM: What about the intro to Rikki Don’t Lose That Number and Silver’s Song for My Father?
    DF: There was never a conscious thought about picking up Horace Silver’s intro. We wrote this Brazilian bass line and when drummer Jim Gordon heard it, he played his figures. As for the piano line, I think I had heard it on an old Sergio Mendes album. Maybe that where Horace heard it, too [laughs].”

    (It’s pretty clear they did pinch it though.)

    • Keith Jarrett successfully sued for plagiarism & is now a co-credit. Horace Silver never did sue. It would have been worth it. Rikki is Steely Dan’s most commercially profitable song.

      • The similarity is obvious, although the basic riff is a pretty bog-standard progression and I suspect it might have been used somewhere before, if you were to dig deeply enough.
        There is a marked similarity in the WAY Fagen and Becker used it on the piano, though.
        Bang to rights, yeronner!

        • Not as cut & dried with Rikki and Song For My Father. In my opinion.
          That 4-note piano motif is only used as an intro to the verses and in the first bar of the chorus by Becker & Fagen. Horace Silver’s composition uses it pretty much throughout.
          The two are not so similar that you wouldn’t bother with one or the other because they amount to versions of the same piece and that is the line that shouldn’t be crossed. Again, in my opinion.

          I think George Harrison was stitched up over My Sweet Lord/He’s So Fine. He could have fought it more vigorously and won, but was badly advised to settle. And opened the floodgates for loads of claims against other writers.

  6. Been plying that Horace album quite a bit recently. There are other vamps that triggered a ā€œIā€™ve heard thst elsewhereā€ response. SD and others I couldnā€™t place.

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