John Almond (also sometimes referred to as Johnny Almond) was a ubiquitous figure on the British blues-rock scene of the '60s, playing with the likes of Alan Price and John Mayall before partnering up with multi-instrumentalist Jon Mark in the Mark-Almond Band. Born in Enfield, Middlesex, in 1946, Almond displayed an interest in music from an early age, helped by the fact that his father was a drummer -- although percussion was only one of the categories of instrument on which he started to learn. He was also quick to learn from his father's collection of records, which included a lot of '40s jazz by the likes of Benny Goodman and Woody Herman. Alto saxophone became his first instrument, but he also became proficient on tenor sax and eventually achieved professional mastery on seven others, including various keyboard instruments and the vibraphone. He had turned professional before finishing high school and played in various groups as a teenager, including a big band under the direction of Wally Johnson. His late teens coincided with the British beat boom, but Almond was working with sounds and instruments far removed from what was sweeping popular music out of Liverpool and Manchester. Rather, he led a jazz combo of his own for a time and played with a group called Tony Knight's Chess Men before he found an extended berth, lasting a couple of years in a relatively prominent young outfit, Zoot Money's Big Roll Band. Following Money's breakup of the band (to join Eric Burdon's psychedelic-era Animals), he joined the Alan Price Set, and then signed on to John Mayall's Bluesbreakers in June of 1969. By the end of the year, with the encouragement of producer Mike Vernon, he had cut his first solo album, Patent Pending, credited to the Johnny Almond Music Machine, on which he played a half-dozen instruments. A year later came his second solo album, Hollywood Blues, also credited to the Johnny Almond Music Machine. His biggest success came, however, when he joined up with his fellow Bluesbreaker alumnus, arranger/multi-instrumentalist Jon Mark to form the Mark-Almond Band, which lasted for most of the '70s (with a breakup in the middle) and generated a lot of great press and reviews, even if they didn't sell huge numbers of records after the early part of the decade. After the late '70s, Almond worked primarily as a session musician, but his name recognition is such that his 1969-1970 solo albums have found an audience on compact disc in the 21st century, at least in Japan and Europe. ~ Bruce Eder