IN MEMORY OF IAN McLAGAN

You will have heard by now about the passing of Ian McLagan yesterday. My Facebook timeline is packed today with heartfelt, and in many cases genuinely tearful, tributes to a man none of us really knew although a significant amount had briefly met. There's photo after photo of Mac grinning away and sharing a drink and a laugh with a complete stranger. 

Mrs Monkey and I met him a couple of times and he was as lovely a geezer as you could wish to find. The first was a brief encounter with Kenney Jones at a signing session in HMV and the second was down the pub when Mrs M got him in the headlock she only usually employs on her best mates (see above). He might have been a famous rock and roll star but Ian McLagan felt like one of us rather than one of them.

And where did we all fall in love with the sound of a Hammond B3? It wasn't from Jimmy Smith or even Booker T. Jones but from Ian McLagan and the Small Faces, especially on those instrumental a go-go numbers "Grow Your Own" and "Almost Grown". Now it's up the wooden hills to join Stevie and Plonk. Thanks Mac.