Paul Simonon of The Clash famously learned to play the bass guitar from scratch by practising note-for-note along to the Ramoones’ debut album.

He was following the instructions of his friend and soon-to-be-bandmate Mick Jones, who had given up trying to teach him the guitar.

In despair, Jones got hold of a bass guitar and put little stickers on the frets to show him where the notes were.

Once he’d got the hang of the basics – and you can’t get much more basic than the Ramones debut – Simonon started to expand his range by copying the basslines of reggae records.

Growing up in Notting Hill as The Clash did, reggae was the sound of the streets, much as it was across town where I lived in Hackney, and the influence soon found its way into the band’s music.

Although  they made their name with the high-speed energy of punk, they also covered reggae classics like Police And Thieves and Armagideon Time, and wrote their own like Bank Robber and the punk-reggae hybrid White Man In Hammersmith Palais.

White Man In Hammersmith Palais, arguably their greatest song, namechecked some of their Jamaican idols and influences – Dillinger, Delroy Wilson, Ken Boothe and Leroy Smart – and, like all the best reggae tunes, was built around a memorable bassline.

Simonon’s bass underpins so many of The Clash’s best tunes; not only the reggae ones but he gives London Calling its bounce, drives the funky Magnificent Seven, and comes into his own on his self-penned (and sung) Guns Of Brixton.