JOHN PAUL JONES

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L E D  Z E P P E L I N

JOHN PAUL JONES
(Born 1946)

John Paul Jones (b. John Baldwin) was born 3 January 1946, in Sidcup, Kent. His father was Joe Baldwin, an accomplished jazz musician. and had played with the British Ambrose Orchestra in the big band era.

An only child, Jones had first taken up the bass at 14 whilst a student at Christ College boarding school. His father encouraged him to learn to read and write music, a skill which would prove invaluable in his career.

When Jones was 17, he turned professional and joined Jet Harris and Tony Meechan's band. He stayed with them for two years and in 1964 started session work at Decca Records. As well as bass, he played keyboards and arranged, and was much in demand in the London session scene over the next four years. The roll call of British artists who used him ranged from Dusty Springfield to Rod Stewart, but perhaps his most famous work was arranging and playing on Donovan Leitch's Sunshine Superman. He had originally been booked just to play bass but ended up doing most of the arrangements. The record had sales of 3 million and led Jones to doing all of the arrangements for the follow-up single, Mellow Yellow.

The Mellow Yellow collaboration led Jones to work with the up-and-coming young session guitarist, Jimmy Page. Indeed, Jones it was who booked Page to play on Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy Man.

Thus, by the time Led Zeppelin formed in 1968, Jones had played on sessions with, among others, Everly Brothers, Engelbert, Tom Jones, Lulu and Jeff Beck. He arranged the single She's a Rainbow for the Rolling Stones and also worked on several tracks on their Their Satanic Majesties Requests album. Jones also worked with producer Mickie Most for his act, Herman's Hermits.

Led Zeppelin was formed in late 1968 when guitarist Jimmy Page wanted to reform the Yardbirds (Page was in the previous incarnation). Page's close friend and adviser was manager Peter Grant and it was he who had 'inherited' the ownership of the Yardbirds name. Thus, he began looking around for others to join the band, and the first player to link up with Page was Jones.

During the band's reign, Jones really came into the forefront on the 1979 album, In Through the Out Door. It was the band's ninth album and it was the first time that Jones would be the primary composer of all but one track (Hot Dog). Moreover, his keyboard skills were heard throughout the album.

When the band called it a day after Bonham's death in 1980, Jones kept himself busy. Among a variety of projects, the stand-out sessions and collaborations have been: producing the Mission's second album, Children; working as music director and co-ordinator on the 1991-1992 Expo in Seville, Spain; working on the most significant and critically successful post-Zep projects: REM's album Automatic for the People for which he did the orchestral arrangements for four songs, Drive, Everybody Hurts, The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight and Nightswimming.

He also moved into movie soundracks in 1986 for Michael Winner's Scream for Help, a project for which he recruited Page and Jon Anderson.

In 1999, he released his debut solo album, Zooma. The follow-up, Thunderthief, was released in 2001.

In 2004 he toured with Mutual Admiration Society. He followed this by playing on two tracks of the Foo Fighters' 2005 album In Your Honor.

In 1994, Page and Plant, without Jones, reunited for an MTV Unplugged performance (dubbed Unledded) which eventually led to a world tour with a Middle Eastern orchestra, and an album entitled No Quarter. 'Page and Plant are Led Zeppelin', John Paul Jones observed in 1998, 'in everything but name'. Why they did it without him has never been satisfactorily explained. It seemed unfair and just plain wrong, and neither Page or Plant came out of it looking great. Led Zeppelin's strength was that all members played a precise and integral part in the mechanics of the band, and to strip it of one member meant it just wasn't the same. Nevertheless, the tour was deemed a success if success can be only measured by bums on seats.

Jones has been married for over 30 years to Maureen. They have three daughters, Tamara, Jacinda and Kiera.


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M A I L I N G  A D D R E S S E S

John Paul Jones
c/o Opium (Arts) Ltd.
49 Portland Rd.
London
W11 4LJ
United Kingdom

John Paul Jones
c/o JPJ Communications
91 Tabernacle St.
London
United Kingdom


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