Accused of plagiarism, Ed Sheeran takes out his guitar and sings in court

British pop star Ed Sheeran sang his guitar on Thursday in a New York court to defend himself over the theft of a song by American Marvin Gaye, US media reported.

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For the second time in a year, the 32-year-old singer-songwriter must answer accusations of plagiarism in his songs with worldwide success.

After winning a trial in London last year, this time he is defending himself against the accusations of the heirs of Ed Townsend, the American musician and producer he co-wrote. Let’s go With Marvin Gaye. The session opened earlier this week in Manhattan.

Citing the prosecution, the musicologist said Thursday that the chord progression featured in the two songs was about the same – prompting the Brit to bring out his guitar in the courtroom, he says. The New York Times.

So he played the four major chords of his piece Thinking out loudensuring that they are completely different from those used in Let’s go (1973), a soul classic sung by Marvin Gaye.

Playing one and then the other, he tried to prove that Marvin Gaye’s tracks didn’t work with his song.

The British musician also told the court that he wrote his book Thinking out loud At his home, with his regular music partner Amy Wadge, in February 2014.

“We sat down with our guitars, and we wrote a lot together,” ABC News quoted him as saying.

The singer remembers getting out of the shower and hearing some Amy Wedge chords elsewhere in the house. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘We have to do something about this.’”

Ed Sheeran’s song then ranked second in the Billboard Hot 100, the US reference ranking, and won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 2016.

The hearing is scheduled to resume on Monday.