'Meet on the ledge' is a cover song?!

So, I recently stumbled upon this English folk rock band Fairport Convention and one of their songs was titled 'Meet on the ledge'. I was really intrigued and ended up listening to the song, which I sincerely wish I hadn't. To my dismal I found, it's the same song . Though the GVF version sounds helluva lot better. They did the same with 'Change is gonna come', originally sung by Sam Cooke, and again GVF version sounds better. Don't bash me I am a huge fan of GVF. However I can't get this thought out of my mind, is GVF doing exactly what Led Zeppelin did in it's initial days, make cover songs of somewhat lesser known artists?