Gerry Robinson, who has died aged 76, had a tantalising brush with fame in the late 1960s as a mandolin player and guitarist with the Purple Gang, briefly darlings of the British underground music scene during the first “Summer of Love”.
The band, of which I was a fan, released an album, The Purple Gang Strikes, in 1968, and played in London at the UFO club, where they jammed with Jimi Hendrix, and at the 14-hour Technicolor Dream concert at Alexandra Palace, which also featured Soft Machine, Pete Townshend and Denny Laine.
