John Burns (sound engineer)
John Burns is a British recording engineer and guitarist, known for his work with many notable 1970s artists and bands. His credits include Jethro Tull, Genesis, John Martyn, and reggae acts such as Burning Spear, Delroy Washington, Jimmy Cliff, and Toots & The Maytals.
Burns grew up playing in a teenage band with Andy Johns, who later helped him start in the industry as a tea-boy and tape operator at Morgan Studios in 1965. Morgan Studios was working on Island Records sessions at the time.
He soon became an assistant engineer for Jethro Tull, working on Stand Up (1969) and Benefit (1970). During this period his other early credits included Blind Faith, Humble Pie, Spooky Tooth, Blodwyn Pig, Ten Years After, Quintessence, David Bowie, King Crimson and Donovan. In 1970 he also worked as a live engineer for Jimi Hendrix, The Who and Johnny Winter, and he had been a live sound engineer at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1969, touring with Jethro Tull.
After touring with Tull and Clouds for about eighteen months, Burns returned to studio work and engineered Tull’s breakthrough album Aqualung (1970). As a freelance engineer for Island Records, he often stepped in on sessions for others and worked with Traffic, Mott the Hoople, Fairport Convention, Free, Curved Air, Deep Purple, Marc Bolan and T. Rex, Jeff Beck, Alexis Corner, Jimmy Cliff, Toots & the Maytals and John Martyn on the sessions that produced Solid Air (1973).
Burns’ first production credit came with Clouds and their Watercolour Days (1971). In 1972 he began a key collaboration with Genesis, starting on Foxtrot and replacing two previous engineers. He then co-produced with the band on Selling England by the Pound (1973), Genesis Live (1973) and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974), the last studio album with Peter Gabriel.
In 1974 he worked at Ginger Baker’s studio in Lagos with Fela Ransome-Kuti. In 1975 Burns mixed a dub version of Burning Spear’s Garvey’s Ghost. He spent a period as owner of Escape Studios in Kent in the late 1970s, where he recorded artists including Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker and engineered Motörhead’s 1977 self-titled album with producer John Keen. He also produced Straight Eight, a band on Pete Townshend’s Eel Pie Label, their first album No Noise from Here.
After the 1970s, Burns had fewer major credits but later returned to recording work, collaborating with US singer Lisa Doby and the band JEBO. He is also credited as remastering engineer for the 1998 reissue of Gary Numan’s Exile.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 15:28 (CET).