Ian McLagan, Musician With the Faces, Dies at 69
Ian McLagan, a keyboardist with the British rock bands the Small Faces and later the Faces, and a sideman who traveled widely in top-tier rock circles, touring or recording with Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen, among others, died on Wednesday in Austin, Tex. He was 69.
His death, a day after he suffered a stroke and was hospitalized, was announced on his website, ianmclagan.com. He had been scheduled to perform on Wednesday, opening for Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets in Minneapolis, the first stop on a scheduled brief tour.
Mr. McLagan, who was born in London on May 12, 1945, joined the Small Faces as an organist in the mid-1960s, bringing a rollicking flair - the jazz organist Jimmy Smith has been cited as an influence - to a band that provided some of the signature sounds of the fashion-flashy Carnaby Street era of British rock.
Not as prominent in the United States as in England - the band's best-known and most successful song in America was 'Itchycoo Park,' which reached the Top 20 in 1968 - the Small Faces morphed into the more popular Faces when Steve Marriott, the lead singer, left to form Humble Pie, and the guitarist Ronnie Wood and the singer Rod Stewart joined the three remaining members: Mr. McLagan, the bassist Ronnie Lane and the drummer Kenney Jones.
The band's 1971 album, 'A Nod Is as Good as a Wink ... to a Blind Horse,' which included the hit single 'Stay With Me,' made the Billboard Top 10, propelled almost certainly by Mr. Stewart's popularity. Mr. McLagan was also featured on several of Mr. Stewart's albums, including 'Gasoline Alley' and 'Every Picture Tells a Story.'
The Small Faces and the Faces were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012.
By the end of the 1970s, the Faces had disbanded. Mr. McLagan toured with the Rolling Stones - Mr. Wood had joined the band - and provided a sly, rhythmic backdrop to Mick Jagger's vocal on 'Miss You,' a track on the Stones' 1978 album, 'Some Girls.' He also played with the New Barbarians, a short-lived group that included the Stones' Mr. Wood and Keith Richards on guitars and the saxophonist Bobby Keys, who died on Tuesday. Mr. McLagan later moved to Los Angeles, where he became a sought-after session player.
His solo albums include 'Troublemaker,' 'Bump in the Night' and, most recently, 'United States,' which was released this year. He had lived in the Austin area for the past two decades and was known there for his regular gigs as leader of Ian McLagan and the Bump Band.
Mr. McLagan's wife, Kim, a former model who had been previously married to the drummer Keith Moon, died in an auto accident in 2006. Information about Mr. McLagan's survivors was not available.
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