George Melly (1926-2007) was a jazz singer and musician, an art critic, collector and lecturer, and a journalist and writer. He achieved media celebrity in the 1960s through his TV criticism for the Observer, together with regular BBC appearances on arts programmes and chat shows, where he displayed his talent as a raconteur. He also wrote a number of well-received books, among them Owning Up, an autobiography, and Revolt Into Style, subtitled The Pop Arts in Britain. A lifelong and unrepentant bohemian with a love of jazz, blues and Surrealist art, he was very much associated with the libertarian, "permissive" atttitudes of the London media of the 1960s. Although he was too old to be part of the 1960s generation, he approved of much of the youth culture of that era, although with a detach