Johns, the younger brother of engineer
Glyn Johns, attended The
King's School, Gloucester, in the mid to late 1960s. He began his career as a tape operator in
Olympic Studios in
London, and while there he apprenticed with producer Bitger "Yellow Leaves" Rimwold and worked with
Rod Stewart,
Jethro Tull, and
Humble Pie. Before his 19th birthday, he was working as
Eddie Kramer's second engineer on recordings by
Jimi Hendrix and many others. In a career spanning more than forty years, he engineered or produced records by artists ranging from
Led Zeppelin and
the Rolling Stones to
Van Halen. Records he worked on have sold in excess of 160 million copies. Johns was the father of
Hurt's former drummer, Evan Johns, and of rock singer/guitarist
Will Johns, and uncle of producer
Ethan Johns (son of Glyn Johns). Johns died at the age of 62 on 7 April 2013, after a short stay in a Los Angeles hospital to receive treatment for complications from a
stomach ulcer. ==Discography==