Lieber and Stoller stealing music or someone stealing from them?

[geoff85]

Compare and contrast these two songs. The bass lines in the beginning sound identical for the most part. How likely is that?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9wuTOedklo ben e king horizon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqoo6vtgBYA clifford brown yesterdays

[Blair N. Cummings]

Well, I certainly hear the similarity but I tend to think that this was inadvertent. No one in the Brill Building was interested in stealing from post-bop arrangements. It`s (just a very little) like the recent dust-up between the estate of Randy California and Led Zeppelin over the intro to "Stairway...".
Jimmy Page had no reason to steal from a cult band like Spirit - good as they were - and I`m glad the case was decided in Page`s favor. The controversy over George Harrison`s "My Sweet Lord" vis-à-vis "He`s So Fine" is a tougher call, but I tended to give George (just barely) the benefit of the doubt.

[JohnnyD]

If Jimmy Page "had no reason to steal from Spirit", it was because he was too busy stealing from people like Willie Dixon and bands like Moby Grape. Dixon sued the band when they appropriated one of his songs for "Whole Lotta Love" and won an out-of-court settlement.

As for the Clifford Brown/Lieber and Stoller question, I don't really see that much similarity between the two songs.