Not riffage per se, but am pretty sure John Lydon and Mark E. Smith both stole their ideas of phrasing-ah from Miss Diana Rosssssssss-ah:
The Faces' "Cindy Incidentally" is totally lifted from the Bob Dylan and The Hawks' "I Don't Believe You", which was only available on the Royal Albert Hall (sic) bootleg at the time, so The Faces must've thought no-one would notice...
Hadn't heard that one. Interesting. The Paradise City riff is a mixture of those two riffs [Crest of a Wave & Zero the Hero]. The Rory riff doesn't have the chromatic ascension, and the Iommi riff doesn't have the long chord in the end.
it's a traditional bass pattern, nobody has a claim to it, also in While My Guitar Gently Weeps and a handful of others offhand i would say descending, but i know enough not to...
The Steve Miller Band "Jet Airliner" is a slowed down version of the Eric Clapton Crossroads riff. I know Paul Pena wrote JA but that riff doesn't really appear in his version. John Lennon lifted the opening riff to Revolution from Pee Wee Crayton. I can't recall the title of the song at the moment.
La Düsseldorf's 'White Overalls' sounds as though it owes a fair bit to Plastic Bertrand's 'Ça plan pour moi', or vice versa. The ascending guitar figure on The Tourists' 'One Step Nearer The Edge' sounds like a straight lift from the one in the Floyd's 'Fearless'.
Genesis Misunderstanding main riff is directly from Hot Fun In The Summertime by Sly and The Family Stone (1969). Kansas took the intro riff from a Journey song called I'm Gonna Leave You for a later part of Carry On Wayward Sun starting around :33 mark. There was a song by a group in the 90's that basically copied the main riffs (both rhythm and lead) of Odorono by The Who note for note.
(imported from Astrud Gilberto thread) Astrud Gilberto should sue the pants off Deep Purple! It is entirely possible they ripped off her intro to Maria Quiet (from Look To The Rainbow), and made it into Smoke On the Water! Other than a few run notes it is identical. Same riff, stops, accents. The percussion intro caught my attention before the music started, Smoke On The Water but faster. They figured no rockers would ever notice and of course someone else heard it too, I found this when searching up Maria Quiet. Open and shut case:
Let’s not forget “Wah Wah” from All Things Must Pass, xeroxed from Delaney & Bonnie’s “Coming Home” on their On Tour With Eric Clapton LP.
Keith Jarrett's piano chops and sax sound from Long as you know you're living yours allegedly copied heavily on Steely Dan' s song Gaucho. Think they settled out of court.
That song predates 1976. The earliest known recording was 1974 off of Hardcore Devo, and they had played it live before then.
Deep Purple again! The main riff in Child in Time is lifted from 'Bulgaria' from It's a Beautiful Day's first album. Took me aback the first time I heard Bulgaria after being so used to Child in Time. Also, the descending riff from The Beatles 'Hey Bulldog' is a close relative of the riff in Lee Dorsey's 'Get Out of My Life Woman'.
The verse melody to "Material Girl" by Madonna is almost a note-for-note rip of the chorus melody to "You Should Hear How She Talks About You" by Melissa Manchester.
"Catch Me Now I'm Falling" by the Kinks contains a riff super similar to "Jumpin' Jack Flash". Ray is rumoured to have said this about it when asked: "If you're gonna steal, steal from the best." Oh and the Kinks have stolen their own riffs about 15 million times. And I love it all.
I mean, they admitted to it typically as well. George legitimately thought music was something to be universally shared and not owned until his lawsuit. Look hard enough and every song rips off something from another song, whether consciously or unconsciously.
