Mike Vernon was a key figure in the British blues boom of the mid-Sixties, and produced a swathe of influential debut albums.

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Wayne Perkins was one of those Zelig-like music figures, a brilliant guitarist who pops up on records everywhere but never became a household name.

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Country Joe McDonald didn’t play country music but he did make a mark with his protest songs drenched in psychedelia.

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The death of Wes McGhee seems to have passed virtually unnoticed, even among the music community. Which is a big shame.

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Willie Colón was a salsa pioneer and the all-round badass of Latin music – literally so when you consider his surname and nickname of El Malo (‘The Bad One’).

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If he had never played another note after 1977, Fred Smith would still have had a place in music history as one quarter of the band who made Marquee Moon – my favourite album of all time.

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Catherine O’Hara played some of the funniest characters on film and TV – and her sister Mary Margaret O’Hara made one of the best debut albums ever recorded.

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Sly Dunbar was one half of the greatest reggae rhythm section in history, alongside the late and equally great Robbie Shakespeare.

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Kenny Morris was a drummer with a unique style, and one of the founding musicians of post-punk in the early days of Siouxsie & The Banshees.

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