![]() The industry lobbied for a new law to be passed by Congress that would basically render the court’s verdict impotent. ![]() ![]() This caused a huge uproar in the music industry since so many artists with copyrights on songs before 1978 would find their copyrights being rendered invalid. Supreme Court was asked to review the case and overrule the decision, but they decided to decline. This became a landmark case, setting a very important precedent. Eventually, after a lot of legal wrangling, the court decided that the song was in the public domain. This copyright would have expired in the mid-1970s. ZZ Top’s lawyers argued that the release of the original 1948 recording constituted publication, and thus implied copyright. All of this happened before La Grange was released.Īs it turned out, Besman had never actually filed for a copyright on the song at any time. Later, in 1972, The Rolling Stones covered Harpo’s Shake Your Hips for Exile on Main Street, with nary a note changed. Even Hooker himself took some inspiration from Slim Harpo’s ‘Hips’ version in his update of the song with Canned Heat, Boogie Chillen No. Bo Diddley had used a variation of the riff on his song Bring it to Jerome as early as 1955, and Slim Harpo combined Hooker’s riff with some of Bo Diddley’s variation on his 1966 song Shake Your Hips. In reality, as is often the case with rock music, by the time ZZ Top released La Grange, Hooker’s original riff for Boogie Chillen had already inspired other artists. Oddly, Besman was supposedly not even aware of the existence of La Grange until 1990 or ’91 and only found out about it because Hooker told him of it. It was originally recorded as a solo performance but Hooker recorded a new full-band version in 1970 with Canned Heat for the album “Hooker ‘N’ Heat.” Hooker had given his rights in the song to Besman, who claimed to have registered for a copyright in 1967.īesman claimed not only that La Grange was similar to Boogie Chillen but that ZZ Top intended La Grange as a cover of the song, and even told John Lee Hooker that this was their intention. The song was a number one R&B hit and sold at least one million copies. ![]() In 1948 Besman had joined John Lee Hooker to write Boogie Chillen. Legal Issuesĭecades after the release of La Grange, ZZ Top and, their manager Bill Ham and their publishing and production companies were sued by producer and song-writer Bernard Besmans’ La Cienga Music Co. It grew during the years and, when money was scarce during the Great Depression, the business would often take chickens or other livestock for payment, hence the name. The shack, which began in 1844 out of a local motel, was actually a semi-mobile “house of ill-repute” started by three women. The song is named after La Grange, Texas but the “shack outside La Grange” the song refers to was an operation a few miles out of La Grange known locally as the “Chicken Ranch” or just the Ranch, for short. Where Did La Grange by ZZ Top get its Name? ![]()
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