Micky Jones has died he was 63.

With Merthyr Tydfil-born Jones, the band had four Top 40 UK albums from the late 1960s and toured across Europe and America, where admirers included Frank Zappa.

Friend and former colleague Phil Little said Jones had a "command of melody" and was "the most humble guy".

Jones, who had been fighting a brain tumour, died at a care home in Swansea.

Mr Little, who played with Jones in the 1980s with the London-based The Flying Pigs, said Frank Zappa once described Jones as "one of the 10 best guitarists in the world".

He said: "I did hundreds of gigs with him and I never saw him have a cross word with anybody. He had maximum respect from all the musicians.

With Micky Jones on guitar, Man had four albums in the UK UK Top 40

"He had great command of melody. He would improvise fantastically. He also have a very pure and soulful voice."

Jones' first band The Bystanders, was a Merthyr-based close harmony four-piece formed in the early 1960s, with BBC Wales radio presenter Owen Money, who was calling himself Gerry Braden, on vocals.

Money said he was "devastated" at the loss of someone who was a family friend as well as an artistic collaborator.

He said: "We came up together, we shared our life together. I know it was an inevitability but words can't express what I'm feeling at the moment.

"He taught me to play the guitar. His first job was as a hairdresser. He cut my hair.

"He was a fantastic musician. He had a "Frankie Valli" voice. We were set apart from any band in Wales at the time - we could do songs others could not do - because of his high falsetto voice.

Micky Jones (second right) was ever-present in the band's line-up

The women loved him so much, especially in the 60s. There we girls screaming and always three times as many screaming for Micky than anyone else. He was good looking boy."

In 1968, after Money had moved on, the Bystanders added Deke Leonard, Jones' guitar partner for some three decades, embraced the counterculture and became Man.

They had four albums in the UK Top 40 between 1973 and 1976 and toured on continental Europe and America.

Music journalist Michael Heatley, who ran a Man fans newsletter for 20 years, said the band reached "the upper second division of British rock" but had been overlooked in the history of rock.

He said: "Man were a live band. People would go and see them because they knew that the live performance was going to be much better than the record.

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