WHAT a great evening of music delivered by one the best Hammond organ players in the business. Georgie Fame enjoyed big chart hits in the sixties with hits like Yeh Yeh, Getaway and The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde and decades of life as a touring musician with people like Van Morrison and Bill Wyman.

Now, in his 70s, he’s enjoying a different sort of touring, as family man with a musical legacy to share. With two sons, Tristan and James, on guitar and drums and his granddaughters, Fallon and Merle, as support act, “Grandpa Georgie”, as he was introduced, focused on the story of his musical life.

He played music from his almost 60 year career, including of course all the aforementioned hits, and offered genial and illuminating anecdotes between numbers.

There were great songs by influential performers and writers like Booker T Jones, Ray Charles, Mose Allison, Hoagy Carmichael, Floyd Dixon and Peggy Lee and even a spot of country (Jim Reeves and Willie Nelson) as re-imagined by Ry Cooder and Joe Hinton.

There were memories of the All nighters at Soho’s Flamingo Club and there were tales of rock ’n’ roll, of touring with Eddie Cochrane and Billy Fury, a talent contest with a pre Beatles Ringo Starr, a tearful Mitch Mitchell sacked from the Blue Flames but snapped up by new boy on the Soho block Jimi Hendrix.

It was grand stuff and illustrated with great musical finesse. The Hammond organ is an extraordinarily expressive instrument and Fame knows exactly how to handle it. Though he did switch briefly to piano to pay tribute to the great Fats Domino, one of his original heroes, whose death at the age of 89 had been announced only hours earlier. He chose Good Lawdy Miss Clawdy which was recorded by Lloyd Price in 1952 featuring a classic Fats performance on piano.

It was a lovely evening with the granddaughters returning to the stage and joining grandpa, dad and uncle for a final number. Reflective and poignant, it was simply called Was.