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John Baldwin was born in Sidcup, Kent on January 3, 1946. As a kid he grew up with music. His father
was an accomplished jazz musician and his mother was a singer.
When Paul Jones was fourteen years old he decided to pick up the bass guitar. His father then pushed
him to learn and write music. After leaving school he played at army bases nearby to home. But after he turned seventeen he
accepted an invitation to turn professional with Jet Harris and Tony Meehan's band.
For eighteen years he toured with the band but then they broke up. After that he did some freelance
for Decca Records. He played a lot sessions for them with his old band sometimes.
When John Paul was eightteen he got the chance to make a record by himself. He played six string bass
with overdubbed orchestration to make the style of Baja.
Because the bass was still very misunderstood in old british rock and the desire for musical adventure John
Paul picked up the keyboard. He already knew how to play it decently well because he played the organ in his old church when
he was a boy. The organ was actually his first musical love and is what made him want to be a musician. He started playing
the bass because it was easier to take a bass to work than an organ.
As a bass player he was influenced by a lot of jazz musicians. He listend more to jazz and motown because
at the time that was the only thing around with a bass guitar. Some of the jazz artists that he was influenced by were Charlie
Mingus, Ray Brown, and Scott LaFaro.
Who really turned John Paul onto bass guitar was Phil Upchurch, the bass guitar pioneer. Upchurch
was the first person to make a record with a bass guitar with an important part. John Paul's favorite part was the bass solo.
After a while John Paul met up with an artist by the name of Donovan Leitch. John Paul was supposed
to be a bass player for him but he ended up arranging the whole thing because the arranger didn't know what he was doing.
After doing this he really got into doing arrangment for other artists.
John Paul got to do his first working session as an arranger with a young new session guitarist named
Jimmy Page. John Paul intoduced him to Leitch and he became the guitarist for Leitch new song "Hurdy Gurdy Man".
Later John Paul was introduced to Jimmy Miller, producer of the Rolling Stones, and was asked to arrange
some of their songs. John Paul got arrange "She's a Rainbow" for the Rolling Stones and some other songs from the album "Their
Satanic Magesties Request".
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