He has worked with many of the most famous rock recording acts from both the UK and abroad, such as the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Kinks, Eagles, Bob Dylan, the Band, Eric Clapton, the Clash, Steve Miller Band, Small Faces, the Ozark Mountain Daredevils and Joan Armatrading.

[4] Johns attributes his experience in the choir, particularly hearing and watching Rapley play the organ, as having a profound impact on his musical direction.

[10] Lonnie Donegan's skiffle hit version of Lead Belly's "Rock Island Line" was also influential—according to Johns, "I had heard nothing like it and rushed out to buy it the next day".

[11] Johns began to keep company with a group of friends interested in music, whose ranks included Ian Stewart (later in the Rolling Stones).

[15] Johns recounts that his early duties included odd tasks and providing basic support for the experienced engineers.

television programme, which featured leading British rock and roll performers of the day, such as Joe Brown, Marty Wilde, Billy Fury, Wee Willie Harris, and others.

[20] Johns recounts that in the early 1960s, he was signed to Decca Records as a solo musical performing artist at the urging of Jack Good.

[26] The makeshift sessions attracted many of the best young musicians in London, such as Jimmy Page, Ian Stewart, Alexis Korner, Brian Jones, and Nicky Hopkins.

[29] The two lived for a while in a house nicknamed "the Bungalow" with one of Stewart's friends, Brian Wiles, who played in a group with Jeff Beck.

[13][b] According to Pete Townshend in his autobiography: Glyn was my model of what a good producer should be—someone who guides the music and creates the right sound—and there was a great mutual respect and fondness between us.

"[48]Though Johns briefly ceased recording the Rolling Stones in late 1963 and 1964, in 1965 he returned to the role on their British sessions and assisted the group with much of their most famous material.

[53] Johns worked regularly with the Rolling Stones as engineer for the remainder of the decade and into the mid-1970s—from December's Children (And Everybody's) (1965) through to Black and Blue (1975).

[54][d] Starting with the sessions for Between the Buttons in late 1966, Johns and the Rolling Stones began to record extensively at Olympic Studios.

[67] Glyn Johns contributed to certain tracks on It's Only Rock 'n Roll,[68] and returned as chief recording engineer on the early sessions for Black and Blue.

[78][i] The other former Small Faces, Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan, and Kenney Jones, joined with Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood, both from Jeff Beck Group to form the Faces, and Johns engineered and co-produced (with the band) the albums A Nod Is as Good as a Wink... to a Blind Horse[80] and Ooh La La.

[81] During the 1970s, after leaving the Faces, Ronnie Lane worked on several projects including the Rough Mix album with Pete Townshend, which was produced by Glyn Johns.

[98][j] Johns engineered early recorded parts of the song "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" at Trident Studios[100] on 23 February 1969, that in later finished form appeared on the Abbey Road album.

[101] For Abbey Road's remaining tracks, the group returned to EMI Studios and re-united with producer George Martin and a team of engineers including Geoff Emerick, Phil McDonald, and Alan Parsons.

[110] In the late 1960s and 1970s, Johns was in demand on both sides of the Atlantic and worked with American acts such as the Steve Miller Band, and the Eagles.

[1] Johns did his first work with an American act in 1968 with the Steve Miller Band, whom he had seen perform live at the Fillmore in San Francisco.

[119][l] Johns engineered and produced the Eagles' first three albums, bringing them to Olympic Studios in London to record their self-titled debut,[121] followed by Desperado,[13] and the early sessions for On the Border.

[122] Johns, who preferred their early country-rock orientation,[123] fell out of favour with the group and left during the making of On the Border, so they moved the sessions to California and brought in producer/engineer Bill Szymczyk to finish the album.

[122] Eventually, Randy Meisner and Bernie Leadon departed,[124] and the band recruited Don Felder and former James Gang guitarist Joe Walsh.

[125] Johns engineered and co-produced the first two albums by the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, which provided the hits "If You Wanna Get to Heaven" and "Jackie Blue".

[132] Providing Armatrading with her first chart hit, "Love and Affection", the eponymous third album cemented her career, and was once described by Johns as his best work.

[134] The group's chief songwriters Mick Jones and Joe Strummer disagreed on how to proceed, and according to Johns even booked separate studios in New York to do their own competing mixes of the album.

[135] Johns agreed and, upon hearing an acetate of one of the previous mixes, was concerned about the record's apparent self-indulgence, but was also impressed with many of its tracks and realised that there was enough strong material to make a good album.

[143] In 2011, after a number of years spent largely away from production, Johns worked with Ryan Adams on his album, Ashes & Fire.

[146] Johns has stated that he prefers, when possible, to record instrumental tracks with musicians playing together live in the studio as a collective unit, using a limited number of microphones and tracks—in a space suitable for ensemble playing that has unique acoustical characteristics,[147] and he generally prefers recording the basic track from one continuous take of a whole performance, rather than editing together different pieces.

[158] Johns has written an autobiography titled Sound Man, published by Blue Rider Press on 13 November 2014,[159] in which he recounts his experiences working with the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Who, the Eagles, Crosby, Stills and Nash, and others.