Ernie Hines achieved belated recognition when Our Generation was famously sampled by Pete Rock and CL Smooth on their 1992 hip-hop classic Straighten It Out.

More than 20 years before that it was a fantastic soul tune on a long-forgotten album called Electrified by Ernie Hines, released on the Stax label in 1970.

Ernie belatedly got his props as a result, and the album became something of a cult classic for collectors after further promotion from this tune being covered by John Legend and The Roots in 2010.

The same album produced the funky stomper Sugar Plum, which threw in an edgy guitar solo, but Our Generation is the standout tune. As a result Ernie, who made little impact in his day, now has his recordings on the walls of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis.

Born in Mississippi in 1938, Earnest (yes, that spelling) was a quarterback in his high school and college football teams and a semi-pro baseball player before picking up a guitar and dedicating himself to music.

After his family moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he joined a group called the Singing Silvery Clouds before forming his own gospel group, The Scotlandaires, and composing a popular radio jingle for his employers, a local bakery.

Graduating from Christian groups to playing guitar with some of the biggest names of the era – Slim Harpo, Big Joe Turner, Clyde McPhatter – he also scored the title song of a movie when Otto Priminger came to town to film Hurry Sundown.

Hines then moved to Chicago in the mid-’60s and set up his own label and publishing company, writing more than 100 songs, before heading back south to join Stax Records, where he recorded the Electrified album.

Now in his late 80s, he’s still around today, having returned to gospel music in his later years.