Brian Jones' Only Solo Album Was a Field Recording of Moroccan Trance Music

The only album ever released under Brian Jones’ own name isn’t a rock record—it’s a raw field recording of the Master Musicians of Joujouka, a village of Sufi trance musicians in the hills of northern Morocco. Jones traveled there in 1968, driven by his lifelong fascination with exotic instruments and world music, and recorded the group’s haunting, hypnotic pipes and drums. He never lived to see it released.

Jones died in July 1969. The tapes sat until 1971, when Rolling Stones manager Allen Klein finally put them out as Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka. It flopped commercially, but over time it became a cult artifact—a glimpse of the restless creative side Jones rarely got to show in the Stones. Later reissues stirred debate about whether the original recordings were overdubbed or altered, but the album remains a strange, beautiful monument to his curiosity.