Brian Jones (musician)
| Brian Jones | |
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Jones, before The Rolling Stones' performance at Georgia Southern University on 4 May 1965
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Lewis Brian Hopkin Jones |
| Also known as | Elmo Lewis |
| Born |
28 February 1942 Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England |
| Died | 3 July 1969 (aged 27) Hartfield, Sussex, England |
| Genres | |
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| Instruments |
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| Years active | 1960–1969 |
| Labels | |
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| Notable instruments | |
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Lewis Brian Hopkin Jones (28 February 1942 – 3 July 1969) was an English musician, the founder and the original leader of The Rolling Stones.
Although he was originally the leader of the band, Jones's fellow band members Mick Jagger and Keith Richards soon overshadowed him, especially after they became a successful songwriting team. Jones developed a serious drug problem over the years and his role in the band steadily diminished. The band asked Jones to leave the Rolling Stones in June 1969 and guitarist Mick Taylor took his place in the group. Jones died less than a month later by drowning in the swimming pool at his home on Cotchford Farm in Hartfield, East Sussex.
Original Rolling Stones bass guitarist Bill Wyman said of Jones, "He formed the band. He chose the members. He named the band. He chose the music we played. He got us gigs. ... he was very influential, very important, and then slowly lost it – highly intelligent – and just kind of wasted it and blew it all away."
Lewis Brian Hopkin Jones was born in the Park Nursing Home in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, on 28 February 1942. An attack of croup at the age of four left him with asthma, which lasted for the rest of his life. His middle-class parents, Lewis Blount Jones and Louisa Beatrice Jones (née Simmonds) were of Welsh descent. Brian had two sisters: Pamela, who was born on 3 October 1943 and died on 14 October 1945 of leukemia; and Barbara, born on 22 August 1946.
Both Jones's parents were interested in music: his mother Louisa was a piano teacher, and in addition to his job as an aeronautical engineer, Lewis Jones played piano and organ and led the choir at the local church.
In 1957 Jones first heard Cannonball Adderley's music, which inspired his interest in jazz. Jones persuaded his parents to buy him a saxophone, and two years later his parents gave him his first acoustic guitar as a 17th birthday present.
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