Next month the ears of a Californian jury will settle a long-running debate among rock fans: were the opening bars of Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven lifted from an instrumental composed by American Jewish guitarist Randy California?

A lawsuit filed on behalf of a trustee for the late musician - who died in 1997 aged 45 while rescuing his son from the sea - argues that he should receive part-credit for Zeppelin's iconic track.

Born Randy Wolfe, the protégé of Jimi Hendrix played with the West Coast band, Spirit, who, according to the legal papers, "fused rock and jazz and enhanced the audio palette by incorporating mind-bending and mood-altering effects".

The court must decide if Stairway borrowed from a Spirit track called Taurus.

One Spirit album includes a song titled Jewish, California's reworking of Hinei Mah Tov.