As list of John Paul Jones collaborators builds, talk of Led Zeppelin reunion likely uninteresting

It was early last month that John Paul Jones was in Madrid, Spain, helping Takehisa Kosugi and the members of Sonic Youth create soundscapes backing up a dance troupe. It all started with a few performances in Brooklyn this April, preceded late last year by some getting-to-know-you rehearsal sessions.

Sonic Youth's drummer, Steve Shelley, has just spoken with the Detroit Free Press about his experience with the "Nearly Ninety" production, which celebrated choreographer Merce Cunningham's 90th birthday. In this interview, Shelley clarifies the extent to which their music was rehearsed versus improvised night in and night out:

That was a lot of fun; that was weird. We went and played music at this dance performance at B.A.M. [the Brooklyn Academy of Music]. We had written scores of music to play of various lengths -- a six-minute piece, a ten-minute piece -- and every night we performed, they would throw down the score in a different manner. Our music would be played in a different order each night, and so it didn't really go with the dancing in a traditional sense but in a more abstract sense.

We were also performing with John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin and Takehisa Kosugi, a longtime Merce Cunningham compatriot. We were sitting on this weird metal sculpture they had built for the show that looked like a spaceship or building scaffolding, and it was just a very odd but very fun event to be at.

Just before this whole undertaking went to performance mode is when Jones made a solitary offhand comment about having been "working on some other music, which is more rock based, with a couple of other people." Not willing to let the cat out of the bag, he has since kept his "secret" under wraps.

One account that appeared this weekend suggests Jones has been rehearsing with Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters and Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age.

Meanwhile, the blogosphere has been abuzz with a guessing game concentrating on a separately reported Homme recording project. The one person claiming to be in the know is Ipecac Records co-owner Greg Werckman; he tells Rock-a-Rolla magazine that his label's other co-owner -- former Faith No More singer Mike Patton -- has been approached about joining Homme on the project Werckman says is "top secret."

Werckman says his colleague isn't the only person Homme is trying to recruit now either. "He's trying to get a lot of people involved in it, too," Werckman says. Homme would be looking at an uphill battle if he has the Faith No More singer in mind. Werckman says Homme is "trying to convince Mike [Patton] to go out to the desert but Mike hates the desert."

The report on Jones, Grohl and Homme collaborating didn't say anything about the desert. In fact, it said they'd been making their music in a good, old-fashioned recording studio in Los Angeles.

L.A., meanwhile is the main stomping grounds for Sara Watkins, who recently completed a headlining tour in support of her debut solo album, which Jones produced. While in New York back in April around the time of his debut performances with Sonic Youth, Jones sat in with Watkins on a late night TV appearance.

Now, Watkins is focused on yet another recording project. Most of the same musicians who contributed to her solo album have returned for the first album under the name Works Progress Administration. From Toad the Wet Sprocket, Glen Phillips usually handles lead vocals. The lineup is actually a lot like the group Mutual Admiration Society that Jones toured with in 2004, except for mandolin player Chris Thile, who's been playing with the Punch Brothers since Nickel Creek split. But it does include drummer Pete Thomas, who played with Jones on two albums but whose major accolade was backing up Elvis Costello in the Attractions. Also, on keyboards, is Benmont Tench, an alumnus of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.



As is typical for Watkins projects, the sometimes-fourpiece/sometimes-eightpiece Works Progress Administration has already played a few dates on the road, including last weekend at the Telluride Bluegrass festival in the mountains of Colorado. Ralph Jaccodine, band manager, says Jones didn't have anything to do with the album "but we do have an all star cast."

There's a pretty good chance that if Los Angeles is Jones's hangout anytime in the near future, he would sneak his way onto the stage with Watkins and her brother Sean once again. For instance, the siblings will be in the Little Room at Largo at the Coronet this Sunday night, June 28, and the Watkins Family Hour returns on Wednesday, July 8.

Between those gigs, Works Progress Administration is booked at Fitzgerald's in Berwyn, Ill., on July 4. The band hits the road for a little longer beginning Aug. 16 at the Philadelphia Folk Festival.

On a final note, it would be funny if Jones gets to work with Mike Patton of Faith No More. Grohl may have had his mind set on drumming for Jones for years, but it was Faith No More's other Mike -- Mike Bordin -- whose name was mentioned as the other half of a prospective rhythm section with Jones way back in 1991. Bordin was Robert Plant's suggestion in 1991 for a drummer if Led Zeppelin had reunited at that time.

Quoted in the press back then about a possible Led Zeppelin reunion, Jones said, "It wouldn't be a bad thing to do. I'm not at all opposed to it. ... I think Jimmy feels the same as I do about it." And yes, 1991 was ages ago. For the highly productive Jones, a healthily growing list of collaborations probably stands in the way of resuming any pointless talks about a Led Zeppelin reunion.

John Paul Jones to produce Sara Watkins album

John Paul Jones will produce the debut solo album of his one-time touring partner, musician Sara Watkins. The California-born singer and guitarist reveals on her blog that work on her first solo project is scheduled to take place at the end of February with Jones producing.

"I'm really excited and a bit nervous, but in a good way. In a way that will keep me on my toes and working hard," writes Watkins, who sang for the band Nickel Creek, which played its final concert Nov. 29 in Nashville.

In December 2000, Watkins and the other members of Nickel Creek -- her brother Sean and mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile -- teamed up with Toad the Wet Sprocket singer Glen Phillips to record under the name Mutual Admiration Society. To support the album's release in July 2004, the all-star cast supported it on tour with the additional rhythm section of John Paul Jones on bass and Pete Thomas on drums.

Thomas and Jones worked together in 1994 as the rhythm section on an album and tour for Diamanda Galas, and Thomas also drummed on half of Jones's 1999 solo album, Zooma.

Watkins said her new band began rehearsing in September. In addition to the expected contributions by Jones, the project is to consist of several other holdovers from the Mutual Admiration Society touring lineup. These are Thomas on drums, and both Phillips and Sean Watkins both on guitar and vocals.

They will also be joined by Benmont Tench from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on piano and organ, Greg Leisz "on pedal steel and other slidey things," Davey Faragher on bass, and Luke Bulla on vocals, fiddle and guitar.

Sara Watkins writes that her goal will be to record an album with purpose. "Truly what it comes down to is that I'm tired of buying CDs and then thinking 'Really? Did this CD really need to be made? Really?' I don't want people to think that about my record."

Watkins's Myspace page currently includes an a cappella demo of her singing an original called "Where Will You Be," alongside a pair of demos she recorded in 2004 with her brother and two other musicians. She plays fiddle on both of those tracks and also sings on one.

She writes, "If I had put something out two or three years ago, that would have undoubtedly been the reaction of many. But I think the timing is right and I am hopeful it'll be something I'm proud of."

Watkins also writes that she and her brother attended Led Zeppelin's Dec. 10 reunion concert "and it was completely worth the trip," she recalls. "Without a doubt. They were great and it was a privilege to be there on that Momentous night."

She says the highlight for her was the band's performance of "Kashmir." "Now there's a band," Watkins writes. "It was surreal. I can't imagine what it was like for the band. All the things they were remembering and thinking about."

Jones has produced many albums over the years for bands including R.E.M., the Mission U.K., and the Butthole Surfers. Most recently, Jones produced Waterloo, Tennessee, the sophomore album by Uncle Earl.

The correct bassline that inspired "Black Dog"

John Paul Jones has claimed numerous times through the years that he was inspired to write the bassline that became the backbone of "Black Dog" after listening to Electric Mud, the psychedelic album by Muddy Waters.


One of these instances was in a lesson for Guitar World Online in about 2001 that included a transcription of the bassline live Zep recording seekers recognize from the intro of 1969 versions of Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor."

Guitar World also featured the bassline from "Black Dog" with accompanying text about how the one bassline inspired the other (and, subsequently, how "Black Dog" riff evolved in its development).


The original URL of that feature was here, although it's no longer online; however, one can retrieve the text of this feature via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. I copied the relevant portions here though, and Jonesy's discussion begins as follows:

Let's begin this first lesson by talking about what I've often heard people refer to as the classic Led Zeppelin "stomp groove." A prime example of this can be found in the song "Black Dog," from our fourth album.

As you probably already know, Led Zeppelin was heavily influenced by blues music-Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James, Muddy Waters, B.B. King and many others.

At this point, the Guitar World Online page included the sheet music, seen here, and a WAVE audio file for the riff we recognize as the intro to Zep's live versions of "Killing Floor." For Mac users (like Jonesy himself), it also included an AIFF file. Alas, these files are no longer retrievable. Jonesy continued:

I was inspired to write the "Black Dog" riff after learning this old blues riff in E (see Figure 1) from the Muddy Waters album Electric Mud (Cadet, 1968). It's a swampy, circular, single-note riff and Jimmy Page and I used to love to play it forever! I wanted to write an original riff that had that same type of busy, yet plodding, feel.

His use of "single-note" means no more than one note is played at a time, rather than that the riff is composed entirely of a drone or repeated note of one pitch. At any rate, there you have it: the claim that it's from Electric Mud.


However, that's a whole album, not a song. So, it must be on one of the tracks, right? Well, if so, you should be able to go back to that album and listen for that precise riff. You can do that until the cows come home, and you'll never find it anywhere on that album.


It is, however, on the track "Smokestack Lightning" from the Howlin' Wolf LP in 1969, recorded with the same intentions as Electric Mud: to make a bluesman look silly doing some psychedelic music that, who knows, might actually earn some younger-generation fans who'd previously overlooked him.


So, what happened? It's my contention that -- gasp! -- Jonesy make a mistake. (Hell, he called me out on a mistake in my newsletter once, so I'm just repaying him the favor.) The two albums are similar in spirit, so he just got them confused.


But that's not the only instance of him citing Electric Mud as the source, is it? No, it's not. He certainly goofed up a number of times!

You know how you learn something wrong, and you can never get it right? Especially if you are never told that it is wrong?


Then we all started reciting it as fact. If Jonesy said it, it must be true. And if Jonesy said it five gazillion times, it must be really, really true! So, we learned it wrong, and he kept saying it wrong year after year, interview after interview. Until somebody stopped him. And that somebody was yours truly.


On Dec. 10, 2001, I interviewed John Paul Jones for four hours. At one point, he and I sang the riff together, and I asked him where it was from. He said Electric Mud. I told him I had that album on CD and I couldn't find the riff anywhere. He said he could be wrong but didn't suggest any alternative. And life moved on for both of us.


The following April was when I discovered where it was really from. I bought the Howlin' Wolf LP from 1969 on eBay and played it for the first time on April 26, 2002, on the 33rd anniversary of the third of four San Francisco shows that week at which Led Zeppelin played that very riff. In my April 27, 2002, edition of "On This Day In Led Zeppelin History," I wrote that the correct source of that bassline is Howlin' Wolf's LP. But he didn't necessarily read that newsletter, did he? Good thing my story doesn't end here!


Two years later, on Aug. 19, 2004, I greeted John Paul Jones on the closing night of his tour with Mutual Admiration Society. I held up the 1969 Howlin' Wolf LP cover to him, which reads, "This is Howlin' Wolf's new album. He doesn't like it. He didn't like his electric guitar at first either." Jonesy saw me and knew exactly what I wanted to talk to him about. While he was signing items for other fans, he talked to me, and I told him this album's third track was the source of that riff. Taking my word for it, he admitted that he'd been wrong all those times in the press when quoted on Electric Mud. I offered Jonesy to take the LP back home to England with him for old time's sake. Instead, he let me keep it -- but now with his autograph scrawled on the front.


If I wasn't entirely sold on the album by then, I like it just fine now.