If there’s one artist I wish I’d seen live more than any other, it’s probably Nina Simone. Especially when she was a regular at Ronnie Scott’s in the 1980s. Except I had probably not heard of her back then.

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The growling blues-boogie of La Grange gave ZZ Top their big breakthrough in 1973, though they were already on to their third album by then – and would go on to enjoy a second lease of life in the ’80s.

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Mississippi bluesman Junior Kimbrough did not come to fame until he was in his sixties – but made a lasting impression with his Hill Country Blues.

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Acoustic bluesman Eric Bibb found fame in his mid-forties and is still making remarkable music on his steel-strong guitar at the age of 73.

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Ask anyone to name the first female blues guitarist and you’ll probably be told it was Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Or maybe Big Mama Thornton. Memphis Minnie came before both of them.

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I discovered the genius of Robbie Basho late in my musical explorations. He came to (minor) game alongside his fellow finger-pickers John Fahey and Leo Kottke but was forgotten for years after a premature death until a resurgence of interest in ‘American Primitive’ guitarists.

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Samuel Maghett – “Maghett Sam” merging into Magic Sam – was a Chicago bluesman who had moved north from his Mississippi Delta birthplace in 1956 when he was 19.

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It’s no exaggeration to say John Mayall is the most important figure in the development of rock music in Britain. 

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Here’s a funny thing: I’ve never heard of Ray Agee, or heard his 1971 recording. But I’ve heard the song before – when it was recorded by The Cowboy Junkies.

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What a tune this is! Brilliant by The Rolling Stones, it’s equally brilliant by Jagger’s co-shrieker Merry Clayton, and perhaps even more brilliant in this funked-up version.

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