Ian McDonald, a multi-instrumentalist who was part of the founding lineups of the art-rock group King Crimson in the late 1960s and the more commercial Foreigner in the mid-’70s, died Wednesday at age 75. No cause of death was immediately given but a spokesperson said he “passed away peacefully” surrounded by family at his home in New York City. (Sources: Variety - BraveWords)
Among the hits he played on were such platinum Foreigner radio staples as “Hot Blooded,” “Cold as Ice,” “Feels Like the First Time” and “Double Vision.”
“I’m quite proud of the fact that the two bands I was a founding member of, King Crimson and Foreigner, are still out there playing,” McDonald said in a 2020 interview with Sound & Vision, even though he had little interest in reunions or rejoining the current iterations of those groups. McDonald, original Foreigner singer Lou Gramm and some other original members did come back together to play some 40th anniversary shows commemorating the 40th anniversary of that band’s 1977 debut.
Joining Foreigner in 1976, McDonald played guitar as well as woodwinds and keyboard on the band’s first three albums: Foreigner, Double Vision, and Head Games. These chart-topping albums all reached platinum certification status, producing such iconic rock anthems as “Feels Like The First Time”, “Cold As Ice”, “Hot Blooded”, and “Double Vision”.
McDonald only stayed with King Crimson for one album, the group’s 1969 debut “In the Court of the Crimson King,” but was considered instrumental in establishing the prog-rock sound that still had iterations of the band surviving a half-century later.
“I used to have regrets about that, and that I should have stayed at least through the second album,” McDonald said about leaving the group in a 2019 interview with thelosangelesbeat.com. “But now I don’t regret it because had I stayed, things would have turned out very differently for me up until this moment… I’m very happy with the way things have played out since then.” Of the band’s serious image, McDonald said, “It was fun! It was done with a tremendous amount of humor. The image of King Crimson is sort of this monstrous band, but it was so much fun! We were just having a laugh.”