John Paul Jones (musician)

John Paul Jones (born John Baldwin, January 3, 1946, Sidcup, Kent) is an English multi-intrumentalist musician and arranger, famous for his performances with Led Zeppelin, and numerous session appearances.

Early session career

Jones' father was Joe Baldwin, an accomplished jazz musician who 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 in London. 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 Meehan's band. His work on their recording "Diamonds" led Jones into contact with the up-and-coming young session guitarist, Jimmy Page. He stayed with Harris and Meehan for two years and in 1964 started session work at Decca Records. A solo single "Baja" on Pye Records followed in April 1964. This is now a much sought after rarity. 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 his services 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 units and led Jones to doing all of the arrangements for the follow-up single, "Mellow Yellow". The "Mellow Yellow" sessions also involved Jimmy Page and this led Jones to book Page to play on Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy Man album.

By the time Led Zeppelin formed in 1968, Jones had played on sessions with, among others, Everly Brothers, Engelbert Humperdinck, 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 Satanic Majesties Requests album. Jones also worked with producer Mickie Most for his act, Herman's Hermits.

Led Zeppelin

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 after Chris Dreja had quit to take up photography, the first player to link up with Page was Jones. Jones had previously sessioned on the Yardbirds Little Games album.

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.

Solo years

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 critically successful 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 début 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.

Jones rejoined Plant, Page and drummer Jason Bonham for a Led Zeppelin reunion on December 10 for a tribute concert to Ahmet Ertegun, fuelling rumours of a full blown Led Zeppelin reunion. On June 7, 2008 Page and Jones joined Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl and drummer Taylor Hawkins onstage at Wembley Stadium to perform Led Zeppelin tracks "Rock and Roll", proceeded by "Ramble On". The BBC reported on August 26, 2008 that Page, Jones, and Jason Bonham have been recording material which may become a new Led Zeppelin project, although Robert Plant has not been mentioned yet.