John Paul Jones (ex Led Zeppelin) - bass steel guitar!

Post by **Brad Bechtel** » 14 Mar 2000 10:29 am

I received a very nice note from John Paul Jones as follows:

My name is John Paul Jones, (ex Led Zeppelin), I just thought I would say how much I enjoyed your Steel site, very informative.

I am on tour in the US at the moment as a solo artist, I have a Stick player and a drummer with me, and the show is all instrumental. I play 4, 10 and 12 string basses and keyboards, but half of the show I do on a custom twin neck bass lap steel. It has 8 strings on each neck in A and E tunings (6 + 2 extra bass strings that take it to the low E as on bass guitar). You can get an idea of what I do from my recent album "Zooma" on Robert Fripp's Discipline Global Mobile label.

Unfortunately we played at the Fillmore West last November, but if you happen to be in any town on this tour I would be happy to put you on the guest list. The dates can be best found at http://www.led-zeppelin.com (there is also a review of the Orlando show).

Anyway, thanks again for Brad's Page of Steel, and perhaps we shall meet up some day!

Best wishes

John Paul Jones
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The site has a link to some photos of Mr. Jones playing his bass lap steel in concert. If anyone goes to any of the shows, I'd be interested in hearing how it sounds.

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Brad's Page of Steel:
www.well.com/~wellvis/steel.html
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars

Adam · Post by **Adam** » 14 Mar 2000 10:49 am

Wow!I don't know what an e-mail like that means to you or others on this forum,but to me that is like getting a phone call from the President...Lincoln!

Mike D · Post by **Mike D** » 14 Mar 2000 11:10 am

I can just see Brad prostrate before his computer, "I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy"

Seriously, tell him Mike D said "hey"

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 17 Mar 2000 6:06 pm

Very cool! There are a lot of photos at the web site, too. Example:
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The address of the photo page is www.john-paul-jones.com/zoomagallery.html

Mike Dennis · Post by **Mike Dennis** » 18 Mar 2000 6:42 am

Very interesting...

I use to play bottle neck slide bass... no quite the same thing.. but a very interesting sound...

gives an electric bass a real acoustic upright sound...

neat oh!

peter joseph burtt · Post by **peter joseph burtt** » 18 Mar 2000 10:05 am

Wow. Must have been a thrill for you to get that message Brad. Sorry to have missed that Fillmore show.

Mike Dennis: very curious about your bottleneck bass playing. How would you tune a 4 string to do so?

Thanks,

peter joe

Mike Dennis · Post by **Mike Dennis** » 18 Mar 2000 10:38 am

No special tuning Peter...

E A D G

back in the early 1990's I was playing bass in a little jam band and would pull out the slide bar quite often...

If I were a full time bass player I may have been a bit more bold to try some open tunings with it.

Someone once posted about a band in Boston where the bass player played a two string bottle neck slide electric bass.

Chris DeBarge · Post by **Chris DeBarge** » 18 Mar 2000 2:52 pm

That would be Morphine. Mark Sandman would have some old Japanese bass, put 2 strings on it and just play with a slide. They had a drummer and a bari sax player, they have several successful records too, kind of a cool, low sound. Sadly, Mark died a few months ago. He was a great musician.

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 11 Sep 2005 8:47 pm

I just was watching the Guitar Wars CD
With The picker from Mr. Big, and Nuno Bettancourt, Steve Hacket from Genesis and John Paul Jones from Led Z.

JPJ played some great lapsteel, on a 8 string Mason steel with Hipshot and another one I couldn't identify.
Great rock style playing.

He also did some bluesy mandolin.
Which explains why he was so happy to jam with us last Oct. at the Mandolines du Lunel Festival in France.

Nice to have JPJ playing my upright bass and backing ME up! LOL

Nice guy and a great player on most any instrument.

Randy Reeves · Post by **Randy Reeves** » 12 Sep 2005 5:15 am

Brad. thanks for the post.
I am so amazed by this forum. so many players read these pages.
one of my heros sent me an email after I posted a postive rave about them...none other than Marian Hall.
b
made my day.

John Paul Jones...hope you come to Minneapolis. we have great venues and many avid slide players. (Mr Plant played here recently. he sold out).
glad to hear you are still the artist.[This message was edited by Randy Reeves on 12 September 2005 at 06:15 AM.]

Drew Howard · Post by **Drew Howard** » 12 Sep 2005 5:42 am

Cool, Brad, very cool!

Drew

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Drew Howard - website - Fessenden D-10 8/8, Fessenden SD-12 5/5 (Ext E9), Magnatone S-8, N400's, BOSS RV-3

Peter Jacobs · Post by **Peter Jacobs** » 12 Sep 2005 6:25 am

How cool is that, Brad! Clearly, you da man.

The bass player for the new-old-timey group Olabelle played slide bass on one number when I saw them a few months ago. He played it overhand, Dobro style, looked like he was using a steel bar. Great sound -- like a bowed bass fiddle.

Post by **Brad Bechtel** » 12 Sep 2005 7:44 am

Don't you love it when a five year old thread gets resurrected?

Jon den Boer · Post by **Jon den Boer** » 12 Sep 2005 4:30 pm

I need to add to this 5 year old thread... I saw JPJ on this tour he's talking about, and it completely blew my mind... the Bass Lap Steel sounded so huge! I was fortunate enough to meet and talk with Mr. Jones, and he was just such a great and friendly guy. I always thought that he was the glue that held that band together musically. One of the great days of my life.

Jon

Ben Sims · Post by **Ben Sims** » 12 Sep 2005 7:57 pm

There is a video on John Paul Jones' web site of him playing the bass lap steel. It's on the lower right of this page - "Nosumi Blues":
http://www.johnpauljones.com/multimedia.html

Ben

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 12 Sep 2005 9:40 pm

Yeah he is a really personable guy for sure.

Third pic from the left on his website,
is us rehearsing for the Lunel show finale. http://www.johnpauljones.com/photos.html

L>R Me, Mike Marshal, JPJ playing my '54 Kay, and Hamilton de Holanda.

Mike is the best north american mandolinist, and Hamilton is the bestsouth american mandolinist.

I would have loved to see the Guitar Wars show.
JPJ sure gets around, and plays a huge variety of music. Luck man.

[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 12 September 2005 at 10:48 PM.]

Dan Sawyer · Post by **Dan Sawyer** » 14 Sep 2005 11:49 pm

Interesting. at first i thought this was a new post. Not sure why it's called a "bass steel". Is it just tuned low, or are there bass strings an octave lower on it?