Roy Buchanan was overlooked rather than underrated as a guitarist. No one who heard him could fail to have been impressed by his talent.

Even when unknown to most, his fans included John Lennon, Eric Clapton and The Rolling Stones, who once tried to persuade him to join them (he turned them down).

I remember John Peel was a fan when I was growing up, occasionally inserting one of his lightning-fingered blues-rock instrumentals into a mix made up mostly of punk and post-punk.

Buchanan’s unique style blended lyrical leads and harmonics: a technique that would be adopted to greater public acclaim by Jeff Beck, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons and Buchanan’s one-time student Robbie Robertson.

Born in Ozark, Arkansas, but raised in smalltown California, he was the son of a farmer and Pentecostal preacher, steeped in gospel music at racially mixed revival meetings. It was when the boy came across late-night R&B radio shows that he became smitten by the blues, picking up a steel guitar at the age of seven and switching to the electric Fender Telecaster at 13. It became his signature instrument.

After moving to LA in his late teens, he was taken under the wing of bluesman Johnny Otis and studied with players including James Brown’s sideman Jimmy Nolen and Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson, before forming his own rock band, The Heartbeats, in the mid-’50s.

By the dawn of the ’60s, Buchanan had relocated once more, this time to Canada, where he signed on with rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins, whose bass guitarist Robbie Robertson was so impressed that he switched to the guitar when he left and formed his own group, The Band.

In 1971 Buchanan became the subject of a TV documentary, appropriately titled The Best Unknown Guitarist in the World, and recorded a series of solo albums throughout the ’70s for Polydor and Atlantic until he became disillusioned with the music biz.

Tempted out of self-imposed retirement by the blues label Alligator, Buchanan returned with acclaimed studio and live albums but, just as his career seemed to be on the upswing once more, tragedy struck. On 14 August 1988 he was picked up by police in Fairfax, Virginia for public intoxication.

Shortly after being arrested and placed in a holding cell, a cop performed a routine check on Buchanan and was shocked to discover that he had hung himself in his cell.