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Some bands are built on friendship. Others, like Led Zeppelin<\/a>, revolved around good old-fashioned work.<\/p>\n “I mean, we weren’t like a group who grew up together and made it big,” bassist John Paul Jones<\/a>\u00a0later told\u00a0Q<\/a>. “Led Zeppelin wasn’t manufactured exactly, but it was put together by Jimmy [Page]<\/a>. … Even with Zeppelin, the thing is we have never socialized. As soon as we left the road, we never saw each other, which I always thought contributed to the longevity and harmony of the band. We weren’t friends.”<\/p>\n When Led Zeppelin parted ways<\/a> in 1980, Jones’ entire\u00a0existence changed.<\/p>\n “Being in Led Zeppelin was a bit like being captive to a great beast,” he explained. “Once it was up and running, that was it. It took over your life. As it happened, at the time that John [Bonham]<\/a> died<\/a> I had just moved to Devon to bring up my family, so after the split I was completely out of everything, and I must say I didn’t miss it.”<\/p>\n In the decades that followed, Jones kept a relatively low profile, aiming to leave the intensity of Led Zeppelin behind. But that didn’t mean he gave up on music. Over the years, he’s collaborated with a number of other artists and bands, usually without fanfare. (There was, of course, Them Crooked Vultures<\/a>, a supergroup that consisted of Jones, Josh Homme<\/a> and Dave Grohl<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Here are six\u00a0great John Paul Jones collaborations you should know, presented in chronological order.<\/p>\n “John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page were very strong session guys for me,” Donovan<\/a> told The Telegraph<\/a><\/em> in September 2025.<\/p>\n In 1966, two years before Led Zeppelin was formed, Jones did the arrangement for Donovan’s song “Mellow Yellow” and played bass on it. Page also played on the album Mellow Yellow<\/em>.<\/p>\n “I don’t want to say I created Led Zeppelin,” Donovan continued. “Let’s say John Paul Jones saw the possibilities.”<\/p>\n One year later, Jones and Page worked together even more closely. This time it was in the form of the Yardbirds<\/a>‘ first album with Page, Little Games<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n Jones played bass on “Goodnight Sweet Josephine” and “No Excess Baggage”\u00a0and provided arrangement work on “Little Games” and “Ten Little Indians.” Yet another step closer to the band that would become Led Zeppelin.<\/p>\n The Rolling Stones<\/a> have Jones to thank for the lovely string arrangement on “She’s a Rainbow,” which appeared on their 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request<\/em><\/a>. Jones, naturally,\u00a0would later be responsible for many of the string arrangements found in various Led Zeppelin songs.<\/p>\n The only thing better than one legendary bassist is two of them. Jones played bass on “Ballroom Dancing,” a song that appeared in Paul McCartney<\/a>‘s 1984 musical film Give My Regards to Broad Street<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and its accompanying soundtrack. (The song\u00a0first appeared on McCartney’s 1982 album\u00a0Tug of War<\/em><\/a>, sans Jones.)<\/p>\n McCartney also nearly joined Them Crooked Vultures, but Jones reportedly beat him to the job. In 2009, he and Dave Grohl hung out after the Grammys.<\/p>\n “We went out for a bite to eat afterwards and Dave told me he was starting this band with Josh [Homme],”\u00a0McCartney told the Daily Mail<\/em><\/a>. “I asked him who was playing bass and he rather sheepishly told me he’d approached John. So you read it here first; Paul McCartney was nearly the bass player in Them Crooked Vultures.”<\/p>\n At some point in the early ’90s, Michael Stipe<\/a> of R.E.M.<\/a> got a hold of Jones. “I had a handwritten note from Michael Stipe accompanying a tape of backing tracks that said ‘we like what you do, we need some strings, maybe if they came halfway through,'” Jones\u00a0later recalled<\/a>. “And I just wrote the parts and turned up with them in Atlanta and booked the Atlanta Symphony and we got on with it.”<\/p>\n Those parts\u00a0became\u00a0string arrangements for four songs on R.E.M.’s 1992 album\u00a0Automatic for the People<\/em><\/a>: “Drive,” “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite,” “Everybody Hurts” and “Nightswimming.”<\/p>\n The cool thing about Jones’ collaborative work is that other artists\u00a0typically reach\u00a0out to\u00a0him first.<\/p>\n “They’re all people with a mission,”\u00a0Jones said in the same interview about R.E.M. “It’s interesting music. Projects tend to come to me. I used to turn down the more commercial projects because they weren’t interesting. Anything left field or requires me having a strange involvement in it. With Heart<\/a>, I got to play mandolin live onstage and work with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra.”<\/p>\n Jones produced Heart’s 1995 live album, The Road Home<\/em>.<\/p>\n There have been vanity projects, weird detours and huge disappointments \u2013 but also some of the best LPs of the succeeding eras.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n1. Donovan<\/strong><\/h3>\n
2. The Yardbirds<\/strong><\/h3>\n
3. The Rolling Stones<\/strong><\/h3>\n
4. Paul McCartney<\/strong><\/h3>\n
5. R.E.M.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
6. Heart<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Led Zeppelin Solo Albums Ranked<\/h2>\n