He used to live about a mile from me over in a rough estate in a place called Heston, known locally as Convict Way - when I was 18 (halfway through the apprenticeship) he offered me a shot of auditioning for a band he was producing but I turned it down - living at home, no transport, no money to spare, just me and the Peter Cook for use... I later discovered he was deping in the band to help out whilst he was also in Gillan and recorded some stuff with them - the bassist that got the gig was Chris Aylmer (RIP), the Drummer called himself Thundersticks, Guitar (also now passed, RIP) was Mick Samson... the vocalist recorded about 3 LP's and has a better gig these days - never met any of them...
I saw Ian Gillan dozens of times... Mr McCoy ended up with a set of Marquee pics from me; he played pick-up gigs there from time to time too...
I'd like to dig out some CD's of JM's Zzebra stuff - have them taped somewhere and used to have the vinyl...
John McCoy was most definitely a major influence and an all-round (no pun) nice guy...