Van and his friends were playing skiffle, then Shadows- style tunes, and then performing in showbands, a particularly Irish institution that required considerable versatility and a precise familiarity with the current hit parade. Then came his band Them, from which point on our knowledge of his career becomes easier to access.

I mention the earlier times because it would have been pretty much impossible for Van never to have played any Buddy Holly songs in those showbands. In 1963 alone, Buddy posthumously had a string of Top Ten hits, one of which, ‘Bo Diddley’, inspired the Rolling Stones’ cover of Buddy’s ‘Not Fade Away’ in February 1964 – when Van’s career proper was about to begin.

And what a career! Forty-something solo albums, and a list of awards and accolades which would easily fill this entire page. We’ll settle for two Grammys, a handful of Hall of Fame inductions, a pair of doctorates, the OBE and the knighthood. Oh, and the gold-plated Antony Dannecker harmonica that I was able to present to him when we took part in Lead Belly Fest at the Royal Albert Hall in 2015.

I’ve had the honour of working with Van over the years: from interviewing him on the BBC World Service in 1982 (and several times since) through being booked on harmonica when he played with his band on Radio 2 in 2008, to singing his song ‘Fame’ with him on his album Roll with the Punches in 2017. I am also immensely grateful for Van’s generosity in appearing numerous times at my fundraising charity concerts. It’s a delight to see that this massively influential singer-songwriter is now a Buddy Holly Educational Foundation ambassador.

On Van’s 1983 album Inarticulate Speech of the Heart there is a song called ‘Rave On, John Donne’. In addition to Donne, the song names other poets such as Walt Whitman, Omar Khayyam and W.B. Yeats – with the title of one of Buddy Holly’s most-loved songs before each name.

Rave on, Buddy Holly! 

Paul Jones