Ian McLagan

Ian McLagan is a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool rock’n’roller. In fact, his smiling visage — he was, after all, a member of the Small Faces and the Faces — would serve as an ideal illustration in the proverbial Dictionary of What Is Truly Cool.

The man known to his many mates and even more fans and admirers as 'Mac' is the sort who shrugs off such puffery. And then he just carries on creating splendid and genuine rock’n’roll with his Bump Band as well as musically aid and abet a marquee line-up of truly blue ribbon talent that he has toured and recorded with: The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen, Taj Mahal, John Hiatt, David Lindley, Paul Westerberg, Billy Bragg and Patty Griffin, to name some but hardly all of the notables that McLagan has worked with over his four-plus decade career.

He has also etched his distinctive musical talents onto the playlist of rock’n’roll history co-writing such Faces hits as Cindy Incidentally, You're So Rude and Three Button Hand Me Down. His Wurlitzer electric piano is heard on everything from Stay With Me by the Faces to the smash hit Miss You by The Rolling Stones, and Mac's trademark Hammond B-3 organ is featured on the Small Faces classic Itchycoo Park and Rod Stewart's Maggie May and You Wear It Well.

McLagan entered the music game in Swinging London in the mid-1960s, and you can read all about it in his vivid and delightful memoir, All The Rage, a book that The Express hailed as “One of the best music books in years.” He ascended from the Top of the Pops with Small Faces to the pinnacle of rock with the Faces when Rod Stewart and Ron Wood joined the band. The rollicking Faces ruled 1970s album radio and sales charts as well as the stadiums, arenas and festivals around the world, leaving countless satisfied fans, many wild tales and more than a few quivering hotel managers in their wake. Whether McLagan is singing, writing and playing his own music or as the go-to guy for a session or tour, he has been and remains the quintessence of rock’n’roll.

Since he cut his debut solo album, Troublemaker, in 1979 — with two Rolling Stones (Keith Richards and Ron Wood) and a Beatle (Ringo Starr) among the players — McLagan has been making music in his own right that carries on the British rock tradition that he helped establish with the Small Faces and Faces on the albums Bump In The Night (1980), Best Of British (2000) and Rise & Shine! (2004). “It’s all raw, up front, in your face, rollicking greasy good-time music done by a master,” says All Music Guide of Rise & Shine!

In 2006, he released a touching tribute to his old bandmate, Spiritual Boy: An Appreciation of Ronnie Lane, acclaimed by the Dallas Observer as “a warm and fitting salute to one of rock's sadly unsung master songwriters and a must-have disc.” Spiritual Boy has garnered chart success in Mojo and leaves a trail of glowing reviews in Rolling Stone, No Depression, Uncut, and Goldmine.

Since McLagan moved to Austin in 1994, the Bump Band has come to include some of the city’s best players: Veteran rock bassist Mark Andes (Spirit, Jo Jo Gunne, Canned Heat and Heart), drummer Don Harvey, whose resume boasts putting the big beat behind Martha Davis, Joe Ely, and Charlie Sexton; and 'Scrappy' Jud Newcomb, one of Austin’s busiest and best guitarists (The Resentments, Ray Wylie Hubbard and Beaver Nelson). Those not fortunate to catch McLagan & the Bump Band on tour or, when home, in their weekly residency at Austin’s Lucky Lounge can enjoy their magic on the CD Extra Live, which All Music Guide hailed as “the first real rock & roll record to be released in 2006.”

Awarded the prestigious Ivor Novello Award in 1996 for his outstanding contributions to British music and inducted into the Texas Music Hall of Fame in 2004, McLagan is beloved by musicians and music lovers alike. He produced the Faces four CD boxed set, Five guys walk into a bar... for Rhino Records, and received a rare honor on April 6th, 2006, when it was proclaimed Ian 'Mac' McLagan Day in Austin Texas. But rather than rest on his laurels, Ian McLagan continues to do what he has always done best: rock’n’roll.

In December of 2007 Ian 'Mac' McLagan and Glyn Johns, his old pal from Small Faces and Faces days, met at Sphere Studios in London to mix and master Ian McLagan's beautiful and emotionally raw CD, Never Say Never. The self produced and directed album features McLagan's award winning Bump Band: 'Scrappy' Jud Newcomb, Don Harvey and Mark Andes, and includes all original songs written by one of the best-loved musicians of our time. Patty Griffin graces Never Say Never with her soulful vocals and she and the Tosca Strings can be heard on the final track, the heart wrenching When The Crying Is Over. McLagan recorded and produced Never Say Never at The Doghouse Studios in Manor, Texas, and recorded Where Angels Hide on the Steinway in The Edythe Bates Old Chapel at The International Festival-Institute in Round Top, Texas.

Ian McLagan, along with singer/guitarist Steve Marriott, bass player Ronnie Lane, and drummer Kenney Jones, was a member of the British pop/rock band the Small Faces, joining in November 1965, six months after the group's formation. Before then, he had been a member of Boz & the Boz People, among other groups. McLagan's first recorded work with the Small Faces was their third single, "Sha La La La Lee," which peaked in the U.K. Top Ten in March 1966. A teenybopper success at first, the band eventually gained greater critical standing by adopting a more psychedelic style. Over the next two years, they scored further Top Ten British hits with "Hey Girl," "All or Nothing" (which hit number one), "My Mind's Eye," "Itchycoo Park" (which introduced them to American listeners, hitting the U.S. Top 40), "Tin Soldier," and "Lazy Sunday," and among their albums, Small Faces reached the Top Ten and Ogden's Nut Gone Flake hit number one.

In March 1969, Marriott quit to form Humble Pie. Three months later, McLagan, Lane, and Jones combined with singer Rod Stewart and guitarist Ron Wood, formerly of the Jeff Beck Group, to form the Faces. This group developed a reputation for its freewheeling performances, but it was overshadowed by Stewart's solo career, which took off in the fall of 1971 with his hit "Maggie May." Nevertheless, the Faces also had considerable commercial success, reaching the U.K. Top Ten with the singles "Stay with Me," "Cindy Incidentally," and "Pool Hall Richard"/"I Wish It Would Rain," and the albums A Nod Is as Good as a Wink...to a Blind Horse, Ooh La La (which hit number one), and Coast to Coast: Overture and Beginners. But in 1975, Stewart quit, while Wood joined the Rolling Stones, and the Faces broke up.

Ian McLagan released his debut solo album, Troublemaker, in 1979, followed by Bump in the Night in 1980. Neither sold well, however, and he soon became a session and backup musician, notably working with Jackson Browne, Joe Cocker, Bob Dylan, Melissa Etheridge, Bonnie Raitt, the Rolling Stones, and Bruce Springsteen, among many others. In 2000, he released his third album, Best of British, credited to Ian "Mac" McLagan & the Bump Band, and published his autobiography, -All the Rage. The hard rocking Rise and Shine appeared in 2004 and was followed by Extra Live two years later. Never Say Never appeared in late 2008. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide