He sort of flew under the radar for most of his career, although he certainly had his day in the sun with Foreigner. Here’s a really nice tribute.
RIP.
And so another damn good musician passes.
I’ve liked him since the first King Crimson.
I also was a fan of his McDonald and Giles album
Indeed, RIP.
Had the M+G album too; especially liked the opening track. (or suite, I guess)
My favourite moment is when he returned to King Crimson after a six-album absence, on the Red album, blowing hard in “One More Red Nightmare”:
Great flutist. Here he is playing Talk to the Wind with KC. (I should have listed this in the “Most beautiful songs” thread in CS.)
Back when I worked at the grocery store, the overnight crew would often turn the music to channels that are not generally used as grocery-store music, and one day, I heard this while opening the pharmacy at 7:55am. I’ve never taken hallucinogenics, but it almost made me want to.
RIP Ian McDonald and Greg Lake.
In this case, the management didn’t change the channel, which in this case was 1970s progressive, and we also heard the 17-minute version of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.” The other pharmacist, who was about 15 years my senior (i.e. he would be a 70-something by now) started telling me the story behind that song, and I replied that I already knew it. We got busy, and sure enough, 15-odd minutes later, we heard that organ progression at the end.