Going solo there were more hits, and tours with people like the Who and the Small Faces. Then came acting: films like Privilege, theatre in London’s West End and on Broadway, at the National Theatre and The Royal Shakespeare Company, and much television.

Founder and frontman of Britain’s the Blues Band since 1979, he presented BBC Radio 2’s Blues Show for 32 years. He’s played on records by Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Tina Turner … and his own songs have been recorded by artists such as Ten Years After, Helen Shapiro and Al Kooper with Carlos Santana.

He was 15, with a serious crush on a girl called Sue, when Buddy Holly’s ‘Peggy Sue’ came out; but it was a line from the other side of that record, ‘Everyday’, (‘Everyone says “Go up and ask her”’) which meant more to him. ‘So I did ask her, but it didn’t get me anywhere. But the way that Buddy made something out of the “turnaround” on that song impressed me permanently: “a-hey, a-hey-hey”. He influenced countless singers with that.’