Focus on Bach

[musophilr]

Was listening to The Early Music Show on R3 on Sunday. One of the pieces played was JS Bach's Jesu meine Freude. "Hey up!" I thought. "Haven't I heard that recently elsewhere?" Then I remembered watching the Focus Ultimate Anthology DVD 2 days before. "Ah! Eruption!" I thought. Does anyone else observe a resemblance?

[Fretwired]

Focus used to rip off/borrow [depends on your viewpoint] from the old masters on a regular basis. They however came a cropper with the first version of Eruption when they used some Bartók - the composers family threatened to sue and they cut it out. I still have a copy of the original version via a live recording - much better than the final result. If you have the Focus anthology then you'll see them playing some Bartók - the drummers at the top of some stairs in the big house (for ambience) with the rest of the band on a lower level. They avoid mentioning them composers name.

I guess the blues guys copied and adapted each others music - Led Zeppelin created whole albums out of other people's blues songs.