HERE COMES THE SONG

Topping a bill that also included, among others, The Faces, America, Mott The Hoople and Lindisfarne, The Who soon had the ground rocking. Moon closed the innings by battering his drums with a cricket bat during Magic Bus, and the band ended a glorious set with their trademark mass demolition of instruments.

The recent death of Danny Thompson, known best for his distinctive double-bass playing in the revered band Pentangle, struck a chord with many. Thompson founded the group but he played on records of a raft of artists, from Nick Drake and Kate Bush to Everything But The Girl, riding the wave of the Fifties’ skiffle revolution with a tea-chest bass he rebuilt himself before becoming a big player in the Soho folk and rock scene of the Sixties when he joined Alexis Korner’s Blues

Brave Awakening showcases both Terry Reid’s songwriting ability and his rich and soulful vocal range

In the age of the information superhighway there is an expectation that the sum total of human knowledge is accessible with one click and Google is seemingly omniscient. It is highly unusual, not to say curious, that the circumstances surrounding the untimely death of an internationally renowned musician should remain shrouded in mystery for years. But this is the case regarding the demise of Ben Andrews in April 2011 at the age of 51.

Britney’s original version contains a comic interlude which Thompson cleverly replaces with a 16th-century instrumental passage (‘to show how things come round again’), and it works well. But the performance is essentially a mickey-take

Red House was written by Hendrix and follows a standard 12-bar blues format. The word Blues is a colloquialism for sadness and yet great blues songs can be incredibly uplifting. This is because the protagonist almost always triumphs over whatever adversity they are facing. So it is with Red House.

Although Lennon and Harrison contributed harmonies to McCartney’s lead vocal, no Beatle actually plays an instrument on the finished track but it is distinctive for an entirely different reason. Lennon and McCartney seldom disagreed over the authorship of a Beatles song. Eleanor Rigby is a rare example

Huddie Ledbetter, aka Lead Belly, was a hard, rough man prone to violence who spent a portion of his life in prison. He was also one of the most influential figures in the history of American music.

The standout track for me is Love You So. It is hard not to conclude that this was at least in part Rodgers’ heartfelt goodbye to his troubled bandmate

Though The Nice’s later work is dominated by Keith Emerson, the work with Davy O’List is more balanced and in my view more interesting

In the jingle-jangle morning, The Byrds came following. It is not too great a stretch to trace a line from the opening motif of When You Walk In The Room, which is repeated throughout and closes the song, to the instantly recognisable hook that introduces Mr Tambourine Man

Procol Harum are its best-known gift to the world. Yet as a new exhibition titled The Scene By the Sea at the Beecroft Art Gallery demonstrates, there’s far more to Southend (182,000 inhabitants), Canvey Island (38,000) and their corner of Essex than skipping the light fandango and cartwheels across the floor.

A Whiter Shade Of Pale regularly appears near the top of any list of the greatest singles of all time. There is no argument about its brilliance. But every other aspect of the song and its creation is surrounded by controversy.

You would be forgiven for thinking that this was Keith Emerson in action. Emerson was indeed there but in the audience, sitting open-mouthed and experiencing a Road to Damascus epiphany. The organist was Don Shinn of The Soul Agents.

I was happily mansplaining this point to my wife as we were entering the garden centre recently when she shocked me by saying that my interpretation was wrong and that it’s Major Tom who sings ‘She Knows’

Listen To The Lion has precious few lyrics, but Van Morrison delivers each word, each syllable with mantric devotion

Spike Island: Pulp’s singer and lyricist Jarvis Cocker has now written two tracks, three decades apart, which draw on the much-mythologised event on the banks of the Mersey. Neither could be described as a celebration

According to the Söderbergs, the song is about the joy of singing with someone you love, and it name-checks two of music’s most famous partnerships

It sounds radically different from Flack’s majestic later interpretation which Peggy would always admit dwarfs her effort in every sense

There is more fluidity about Ferrell's singing but there is still a regular dip into her repertoire of long-held notes or octave cascades