Florida band The Outlaws brought the three-guitar line-up into country rock, blending three-part harmonies with their multiple guitar solos.

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Here is Alice Cooper’s breakthrough hit I’m Eighteen from 1970. Three years later it was the song Johnny Rotten – 18 or 19 at the time – famously mimed to for Malcolm McLaren to get the job of singer with The Sex Pistols.

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Captain Beefheart enjoyed one of his more mainstream moments when he recorded Observatory Crest for his ninth album Bluejeans & Moonbeams.

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There was a time when the demise of a Moody Blue might have made headlines; at least in the music press. This week the death of keyboard player Mike Pinder – the last of the original members – passed almost unnoticed. But not by me.

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When I first heard Domino on The Cramps’ landmark debut Gravest Hits EP, prompting the birth of psychobilly in 1979, I had no idea it was a Roy Orbison song.

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Before Brian Eno and David Byrne came up with the idea of sampling snatches of ‘found sound’ from obscure transmissions, Holger Czukay was already at it.

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Back in 1980 I discovered A Certain Ratio through this song. But until now I never knew it was a cover version – of a 1975 tune by Banbarra. In fact Banbarra’s entire discography consists of this solitary song, divided into two halves of 7-inch single.

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In my early teens I was a big fan of The Allman Brothers’ 1971 live album At Fillmore East. And this 13-minute instrumental was my favourite track.

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This funky tale of a vengeful black god coming to fix the injustices of the world comes from another of those lost masterpieces – an obscure album of jazz-funk matched to black-consciousness lyrics called Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse.

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The deepest of deep cuts, this little-known cover of a little-known soul song is one of the hidden gems in Bowie’s repertoire.

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