Ripoff or Inspired by? Eddie Money, The Doobie Brothers, and Robbie Dupree

We've been listening to a lot of different music here lately at People Liking People, and we love finding similarities in different songs as well as seeing how artists do things differently in the context of a similar song. Sometimes you can tell an artist was clearly inspired by a musician that came before them, and other times it's more of a blatant rip off. Today we present to you 3 songs that we invite you to listen to in the order in which they were written and see if you can't hear that there might have been some "borrowing" going on.

The first original song here is Baby Hold On by Eddie Money, which was released in December of 1977.



Baby Hold On stands out for its drum and bass guitar groove that continues throughout the whole song. Now check out The Doobie Brothers' What a Fool Believes, a completely different sounding song which came out just a month later in January 1978.




Now that you have those 2 tracks in mind that were released in 1977 and 1978, listen to Robbie Dupree's Steal Away, which was released in 1980.



Steal Away uses the same foundation as Baby Hold On but takes a smoother drum and bass approach instead of the stop/start feel of Baby Hold on. It also adds in additional keyboard elements seemingly taken straight from The Doobie Brothers' What a Fool Believes.

Is this the case of a blatant rip off or accidental similarity? You be the judge.