Jim Pons

While he's hardly a well-known figure (though he did play on some hit records), Jim Pons' career is a reflection of the changes undergone by Los Angeles rock itself in the 1960s and early '70s, taking in stints with the Turtles and Frank Zappa. His most significant individual work, though, preceded that, when he founded and played bass in the Leaves, one of the best early folk-rock bands. Pons was a college student when he formed the Leaves at his fraternity house at Cal State Northridge in the San Fernando Valley. They were just an average young frat band before they saw the Byrds in early 1965 at the Los Angeles club Ciro's, which expanded their ambitions and pushed their sound toward folk-rock. When the Byrds got big, the Leaves replaced them at Ciro's, and soon started recording respectable, if garage-ish and derivative, folk-rock of their own. Pons was the leader of the band if anyone was, co-writing some of their original material, such as their first single, the local L.A. hit "Too Many People." The Leaves remain most known, though, for their Top 40 hit "Hey Joe" in 1966.

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