Stairway To Heaven by Richard Cole Read Free Book Online Page B

realized it. Music was an undeniable part of him. He never seriously thought of giving it all up.
    At times, Bonzo might have done better panhandling than playing music. When he was part of the Nicky James Movement, the band was frequently so short of funds that they often performed with equipment they hadn’t fully paid for; more than once, when a gig was over, their instruments or PA equipment was confiscated because they were unable to meet their payments. “This isn’t the way to make good music,” John told himself. But at least for the moment, he didn’t have many alternatives. And he felt an unwavering loyalty to those who let him play with them; he loved being part of a group, a feeling that continued throughout the long run of Led Zeppelin. Even during those tough periods, Bonzo’s notoriety spread: “He’s the best drummer in England”…“He plays so loud that you can barely hear yourself think”…“He breaks more drumskins in a week than most drummers do in a lifetime.”
    With time, Bonzo developed more finesse and less belligerence as he played. Even though he remained a team player, he yearned for the same attention as the musicians who played in front of him, particularly as he saw other rock drummers move into the spotlight. He admired and envied Ginger Baker, dating back to the Graham Bond Organisation, when Baker never let himself become overshadowed by the others in the group despite the strongmusical presence of Bond and Jack Bruce. “That’s the way I want to be,” Bonzo would mutter, “an equal member of the band, not someone just keeping the beat for the forward musicians.” Later, when Cream’s album, Fresh Cream , was released early in 1967, with Ginger Baker’s “Toad” solo turning him into a headliner, Bonzo set his sights on stardom. Less than two years later, he was a member of Led Zeppelin.

5
JOHN PAUL
    E ven 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 hecould 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