Even for those who knew John Paul Jones well, he was somewhat of a mystery man. He methodically went about making his music with a cool confidence that never was shaken. For as long as I knew him, no matter how much feeling he brought to his music, he was solid and dependable. He knew what he was capable of doing—and he did it.
John Paul’s real name is John Baldwin. He came from a family that enthusiastically nurtured his musical interests. He was born in 1946 in Sidcup, Kent, where his father was a piano player and a bandleader. While still a child, John Paul performed on the piano with his old man at weddings, bar mitzvahs, and parties. John Paul realized that it wasn’t Madison Square Garden or the London Palladium, but it was a good training ground for what was to come.
John Paul picked up the bass for the first time in his early teens. He had only one lesson on the instrument, but that seemed to be enough. He let his musical instincts and sensitive fingers take over, along with the influences of musicians like Charlie Mingus, Scott La Faro, and Ray Brown.
John Paul’s first bass was a Dallas model (“It had a neck like a tree trunk”). But while encouraging his son’s interest in music, John Paul’s dad saw no future in the bass. He urged his son to concentrate on the tenor saxophone, convinced that the bass guitar’s days were numbered.
Despite such ominous predictions, the bass never went the way of the accordion or the autoharp. In fact, when John Paul proved to his father that he could actually earn money with the bass, the old man had an immediate change of heart.
At age seventeen, John Paul began moving through a few bands, playing Burns guitars, performing songs by Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard, and wearing outfits like purple jackets and white shoes that would have embarassed him years later. The best known of these bands was the Harris/ Meehan Group, fronted by Jet Harris and Tony Meehan, who had sung with the Shadows when that band had a hit record, “Diamonds.” Because of his youth and inexperience, John Paul suffered some unsettled nerves during this time, but his self-confidence kept his performance level high.
Before long, John Paul found a more lucrative way to make music, namely, by becoming a studio musician. From the beginning, he was serious and methodical, and he was soon offered as much session work as he could handle, accompanying everyone from Dusty Springfield to Tom Jones to Jeff Beck. He played on the “She’s a Rainbow” track for the Rolling Stones and “Sunshine Superman” for Donovan. He also became an arranger for Herman’s Hermits and, in the midst of all this, released a single of his own, “Baja,” whose flip side was the inexplicably titled “A Foggy Day in Vietnam.” Unfortunately, the record achieved about as much popularity as the Vietnam War itself.
As successful as John Paul was in the studio, it eventually wasn’t enough for him. He began looking for ways to expand his horizons beyond the four walls of the recording halls. To the general public, John Paul was unknown, but he never felt that fame was something he needed; more important, he sometimes had the urge to seek new directions for expressing himself musically.
At the same time, however, John Paul was a real homebody and earned a comfortable living in the studio that allowed him to spend a lot of time with his wife, Mo, and his two young daughters. So he’d question whether he really wanted to join a band where concerts, traveling, and being away from home were part of the bargain.
Ultimately, an opportunity would present itself that was too good to ignore. It would come from a young guitarist named Jimmy Page, whom John Paul had met in the studio. Jimmy was impressed with John Paul’s work, particularly after hearing the arrangements he had done for some songs on a Yardbirds’ album. Jimmy kept John Paul’s name in mind and figured their paths would cross again.