Jones was born in the Park Nursing Home in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, during World War II. Supposedly he suffered from asthma all his life. His middle-class parents, Lewis Blount Jones and Louisa Beatrice Jones were of Welsh descent. Brian had two sisters: Pamela, who was born on 3 October 1943 and who died on 14 October 1945 of leukemia; and Barbara, born in 1946.
Both Jones's parents were interested in music — his mother Louisa was a piano teacher — and this had a profound effect on him. In addition to his job as an aeronautical engineer, Lewis Jones played piano and organ and led the choir at the local church. Jones eventually took up the clarinet, becoming first clarinet in his school orchestra at 14.
In 1957 Jones first heard the music of jazz musician Cannonball Adderley, which inspired his lifelong 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.
Jones attended local schools, including Dean Close School, from 1949 to 1953 and Cheltenham Grammar School for Boys, which he entered in September 1953 after passing the Eleven-plus exam. He was an exceptional student, earning high marks in all of his classes while doing little work. He enjoyed badminton and diving but otherwise was not skilled at sports. In 1957, Jones reportedly obtained nine O-levels passes. Despite academic ability, however, he found school regimented and he refused to conform. He was known to eschew wearing the school uniforms and angered teachers with his behaviour, though he was popular among students. His hostility to authority figures resulted in his suspension from school on two occasions. According to Dick Hattrell, a childhood friend: "He was a rebel without a cause, but when examinations came he was brilliant."
In the spring of 1959, Jones's 14-year-old girlfriend, a Cheltenham schoolgirl named Valerie Corbett, became pregnant. Supposedly Jones encouraged her to have an abortion, but she placed the baby boy up for adoption with an infertile couple.Corbett later married one of Jones's friends, author Graham Ride.
Brian quit school in disgrace and left home, supposedly traveling through northern Europe and Scandinavia for a summer. During this period, he lived a bohemian lifestyle, busking and playing guitar on the streets for money, living off the kindness of others. While Jones was fond of telling others about his trip throughout Europe, it remains uncertain how much of his descriptions were embellishment. Other friends claimed Jones merely stayed with friends and relatives outside the UK.
Jones grew up listening to classical music, but he supposedly always preferred blues, (particularly Elmore James and Robert Johnson). He began playing at local blues and jazz clubs in addition to busking and working odd jobs. He was also known to steal small amounts of money to pay for cigarettes, which tended to get him fired.
In November 1959, Jones went to the Wooden Bridge Hotel in Guildford to see a band. He met a young, married woman named Angeline, and the two had a one-night stand that resulted in a pregnancy. Angeline and her husband decided to raise the baby together.
In October 1961, Jones fathered a third child, Julian Mark Andrews, with his girlfriend Pat Andrews. Jones sold his record collection to buy flowers for Pat and clothes for the newborn and lived with them for a while.
Death
Jones was arrested a second time on 21 May 1968, for marijuana possession. Jones claimed the marijuana was left by previous owners of his home. He was facing a long jail sentence if found guilty, owing to his probation. Wyman commented "The fact that the police had secured a warrant with no evidence showed the arrest was part of a carefully orchestrated plan. Brian and the Stones were being targeted in an effort to deter the public from taking drugs". The jury found him guilty, but the judge had sympathy for Jones; instead of jailing him, he fined him ₤50 plus ₤105 in costs and told him: "For goodness sake, don't get into trouble again or it really will be serious".
Jones's legal troubles, estrangement from his bandmates, substance abuse, sporadic contributions, and mood swings became too much. The Stones wanted to tour the United States in 1969 for the first time in three years, but Jones's second arrest exacerbated problems with US immigration, and he could not acquire a work visa.
In addition, until this juncture, the Stones' music had been heavily based on the two weaving guitars; Brian's penchant for exotic instrumentation worked to complement Richards's guitar work. Now, however, Brian rarely came to the studio; when he did, he rarely contributed anything musically, or his bandmates would switch off his guitar, leaving Richards playing nearly all the guitars. According to Gary Herman, he was "literally incapable of making music; when he tried to play harmonica, his mouth started bleeding".
This behaviour began to wreak havoc during the Beggar's Banquet sessions but had fully flourished by the time the band commenced recording Let It Bleed. While the band was recording "You Can't Always Get What You Want", Jones meekly asked an agitated Jagger "What can I play?" Jagger's terse response was "I don't know, Brian, what can you play? From this point, he made himself scarce, rarely attending sessions. By May, he had made two contributions to the work in progress: an autoharp on "You Got the Silver" and percussion on the epic "Midnight Rambler", which remains inaudible on the released version. Jagger informed Jones that he would be dismissed from the band if Jones did not appear at a photo shoot for the compilation album Through The Past Darkly. Looking frail, he showed.
The Stones decided that following the release of the Let it Bleed album (scheduled for a July 1969 release in the US), they would start a North American tour in November 1969. However, the Stones management was informed that Jones would not receive a permit due to his drug convictions. At the suggestion of pianist and road manager Ian Stewart, the Stones decided to add a new guitarist, and on 8 June 1969, Jones was visited by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Charlie Watts, and was told that the group he had formed would continue without him.
To the public, it appeared as if Jones had left voluntarily; the other band members told him that although he was being asked to leave, it was his choice how to break it to the public. Jones released a statement on 9 June 1969 announcing his departure. In this statement he said, among other things, that "I no longer see eye-to-eye with the others over the discs we are cutting"
Ironically, this would come as the Stones were returning to their blues roots, which Jones had always emphasized. Jones was replaced by 20-year-old guitarist Mick Taylor (formerly of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers).
At this point, Jones stayed at Cotchford Farm, with intentions to form another band. He did visit Olympic Studios the next week to discuss the future with his former bandmates, Bill Wyman noting that he was "excited about his own plans". He is known to have contacted Ian Stewart, Mitch Mitchell, Alexis Korner and Jimmy Miller.He toyed with joining Korner's New Church band, but Korner suggested Jones form his own band.
There is uncertainty as to the mental and physical state Jones was in at this time. The last known photographs, taken by schoolgirl Helen Spittal on 23 June 1969, shortly after his departure from the Stones, are not flattering; Jones appears bloated, with deep-set eyes. People who visited (particularly Alexis Korner) were surprised, however, by Jones's state in late June. Korner noted that Jones was "happier than he had ever been" at this time.
At around midnight on the night of 2-3 July 1969, Jones was discovered motionless at the bottom of his swimming pool at Cotchford Farm. His Swedish girlfriend, Anna Wohlin, is convinced he was alive when they took him out, insisting he still had a pulse. However, by the time the doctors arrived, it was too late, and he was pronounced dead. The coroner's report stated "Death by misadventure", and noted his liver and heart were heavily enlarged by drug and alcohol abus
Wohlin claimed in 1999 that Jones had been murdered by a builder who had been renovating the house the couple shared.The builder, Frank Thorogood, allegedly confessed to the murder on his deathbed to the Rolling Stones' driver, Tom Keylock; Keylock later denied this. In the book The Murder Of Brian Jones, Wohlin alleges that Thorogood behaved suspiciously and showed little sympathy when Jones was discovered in the pool (he was the last to see Brian alive), but she admits she was not present at Jones' death.Witnesses who claim to have seen the "murder" have been interviewed by journalists; however, these witnesses have almost always used pseudonyms, and none has been willing to go on record or report to the police.
Many items, such as instruments and expensive furniture, reportedly were stolen from the home after Jones's death, most likely by Thorogood, driver Tom Keylock, and others who worked on the property. Rumours also existthat recordings by Jones for his future projects were stolen but nothing has surfaced to date. A watch given by Alexis Korner to Brian, with a personal inscription, surfaced at Christie's in New York.
Upon Jones's death, Pete Townshend wrote a poem titled "A Normal Day For Brian, A Man Who Died Every Day(printed in The Times), Jimi Hendrix dedicated a song to him on U.S. television, and Jim Morrison of The Doors wrote a published poem entitled "Ode To L.A. While Thinking Of Brian Jones, Deceased"
The Rolling Stones performed a free concert in Hyde Park on 5 July 1969, two days after Jones's death. The concert had been scheduled weeks earlier as an opportunity to present the new guitarist. However, critics accused the band of being callous toward their former bandmate. The band dedicated the concert to Jones. Before the concert began, Jagger read excepts from "Adonais", a poem by Percy Shelley about the death of his friend John Keats, and stagehands released hundreds of white butterflies as part of the tribute. The Stones opened with a Johnny Winter song that was one of Brian's favourites, "I'm Yours And I'm Hers".
Jones was reportedly buried 12 feet (3.7 m) deep in CheltenhamCemetery (to prevent exhumation by trophy hunters) in a lavish casket sent for his funeral in Cheltenham by friend Bob Dylan. The Stones asked fans to stay away, and of the group only Watts and Wyman attended. Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull did not attend as they were traveling to Australia to begin a movie and claimed the producers prohibited their attendance upon threat of having their contract severed. Keith Richards did not attend due to studio commitments.
