Oct 9, 1978: Ian McLagan Marries Keith Moon’s Ex, Kim

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Photo by Todd V. Wolfson

It was a great and enduring love of the sort that’s sadly rare in the rock music world. Ian McLagan, keyboard player with the Small Faces/Faces, was in love with Kim Moon (Kim Kerrigan, born Patsy Kerrigan), when she was still married to one of his best mates, Who drummer Keith Moon, who the onetime model had wed when she was 17 years old. Moon loved her dearly as well, but that made Kim also bear the brunt of his verbal, emotional and physical abuse as a result of his emotional instability, exacerbated by his alcoholism and drug abuse.

One Moon biographer described Kerrigan as “the most incredible creature… with blue eyes as deep as the ocean, blonde hair like silk, an hourglass figure, a face like polished porcelain, and a cheerful smile to die for.” Best Classic Bands contributor Rob Patterson, who knew her later in life when the McLagans lived just outside of Austin, Tex., adds, “Kim was just the sweetest soul you’d ever want to meet, warm, caring and friendly.”

Finally in 1973, she’d had enough of Moon’s antics, abuse and unfaithfulness. McLagan – known to all as Mac – helped Kim and her daughter Amanda Jane “Mandy” Moon move out of Keith’s house and provided them with a place to stay at his home. The two soon became lovers.

They married about a month after Moon died. Soon after the McLagans moved to Los Angeles, where Ian led the first version of his Bump Band as he toured with acts like Bonnie Raitt, the Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart and Bob Dylan and played recording sessions. Whenever he wasn’t on the road, the couple had a standing Friday night date.

They relocated to a semi-rural home in Manor, TX, just outside Austin, in the early 1990s. She was killed at age 57 on August 2, 2006, when her car was hit by a truck. Most of her obituaries recalled her time as a top model in Swinging London and her tumultuous marriage to Moon. But the real story of her life was the 35 years she shared with Mac, who wrote and recorded the song “Date With an Angel” about their every Friday night date in 1995, and followed her into the afterlife on December 3, 2014.

Faces are the subject of a comprehensive box set compiling all of the group’s BBC concerts and surviving studio sessions. The collection – much of it previously unreleased – has been remastered with the full participation of band members Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood, and Kenney Jones. The 9-disc set (8-CDs/1-Blu-ray), Faces At The BBC — Complete BBC Concert & Session Recordings 1970-1973, arrived September 6, 2024, via Rhino. It’s available in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here.