NEW YORK – Years ago, a guitarist friend sighed that there aren't any great rock-guitar riffs left to be thought up. "Damn you, Jimmy Page," he'd say half seriously, half in tribute, shaking his fist at the legendary Led Zeppelin riff-master. That's an exaggeration, of course. Page did not come up with all of the great riffs, even within his own legendary band. As bassist John Paul Jones explained to me a decade ago, if there were a lot of notes in a Zep riff – such as on Black Dog, How Many More Times or The Ocean – it was probably his brainchild. But otherwise? All the rest? Jimmy's. Singer Robert Plant's notorious, early-days lyric-lifting of old blues...
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