[sfgate.com]

Ian talks about Rod and the old days.


Small correction published the next day:





CORRECTIONS

Thursday, February 10, 2005



-- The title of a Rod Stewart song was misstated in a story about Ian McLagan in Wednesday's Datebook. The title is "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?"











Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2005-02-11 18:10 by TravellinMan.

Ian is on tour this week. He's performing at a small club in Los Angeles on Friday night. Check www.virtuous.com for ticket info on the L.A. gig.

I've got a great Mac story.

Some of you may know that he's been part of Billy Bragg's band over the last few years. For those of you who aren't familiar with him, Bragg is a very English singer/songwriter, a real socialist, who often involves himself in political or charitable projects. Anyway, my girlfriend is a teacher at a school in a small town in South-West England, which Bragg's son attends. Billy offered to give a series of music and songwriting lessons to any kids at the school who were interested, and, over the course of a month or two, was able to get a lot of the kids into music and writing songs.

Billy then put it to the school that it would be a nice idea to hire the local Town Hall for an evening and put on a concert at which the kids could play their new compositions, complete with band. So Bragg brought along his backing band, The Blokes, including Mac, who'd all gone to the trouble of learning the songs written by the schoolkids. I remember sitting there thinking, "This man has played to a hundred-thousand people at a time, gone round the world with Rod and The Stones, was a member of the Small Faces, and here he is, giving his own time to play to a few hundred parents, teachers and schoolchildren at a Town Hall in Dorset."

What a total geezer. A gentleman.

DD: That's an awesome story! I didn't even know about it. Mac is so humble, that he'd never 'brag' (excuse the pun ;-) ) about any charitable work. I'll have to ask him about it some time. Very cool! The children must have adored him. He's so full of energy and a real kid at heart.