John "Ian" Bairnson was a Scottish musician, best known as a member of Pilot and the Alan Parsons Project. He was a multi-instrumentalist, who played saxophone and keyboards, although he was best known as a guitarist. He was also known for preferring the sound of a sixpence to a plectrum. In addition to his work with Parsons, Bairnson played guitar on four Kate Bush albums, including the guitar solo on her 1978 debut single, "Wuthering Heights".

The Alan Parsons Project were a British rock band active between 1975 and 1990, whose core membership consisted of producer, audio engineer, musician and composer Alan Parsons and singer, songwriter and pianist Eric Woolfson. They were accompanied by varying session musicians and some relatively consistent session players such as guitarist Ian Bairnson, arranger Andrew Powell, bassist and vocalist David Paton, drummer Stuart Elliott, and vocalists Lenny Zakatek and Chris Rainbow. Parsons and Woolfson shared writing credits on almost all of the Project's songs, with Parsons producing or co-producing all of the band's recordings.