The Nice recorded this version of Tim Hardin’s song How Can You Hang On To A Dream, built around Keith Emerson’s jazz piano and a ghostly choral arrangement.

In my school days, there was a coterie of older boys who idolised prog’s terrible trifecta of Yes, Genesis and ELP. Sometimes they would delve deeper and play records by The Nice, who were, to my glam-infected ears, even worse.

This, it transpired, was because they included Keith Emerson, the keyboard player with classical pretensions who would go on to become the E in ELP.

But, just as ELP had recorded a solitary decent song in their repertoire (the curiously normal outlier Lucky Man), so too did The Nice. Not one of their own never-ending noodlings, but a simpler song written and first recorded by folk troubadour Tim Hardin.

Hang On To A Dream is short by Nice standards; it’s built around Emerson’s pretty jazz piano and embellished with a ghostly choral arrangement by Duncan Browne, who would re-emerge a decade later with his own band, Metro.

The song appeared on The Nice’s third album, Nice, by which time they had been together for three years and Emerson had already decided to form a new trio with Greg Lake, then the singer in King Crimson.

I now learn that The Nice, far from forming in an organic fashion, had been assembled by music mogul Andrew Loog Oldham as a backing band for American soul singer PP Arnold – part of his project to turn the former Ikette into the new Tina Turner.

They comprised three members of an obscure British R&B group called Gary Farr & The T-Bones – Emerson on piano and organ, Lee Jackson on bass and Ian Hague on drums – plus teenage guitarist Davy O’List from an equally obscure band called The Attack.

Arnold liked her new backing band to warm up the crowd by opening her shows, encouraging them to play whatever they liked. Audiences soon warmed to their mix of covers and a couple of self-penned songs, and to Emerson’s showmanship – especially his party piece of stabbing knives into his keyboard.

Soon they had enough of a reputation to get a festival date of their own, and a contract with Oldham’s label Immediate Records, going into the studio late in 1967 with a new drummer, Brian Davison (also from The Attack) in place of Hague.

Their debut album was a strange mix of psychedelic blues, cadenza-like solos on the piano or Hammond organ, and ornate, flashy guitar reminiscent of Hendrix, incorporating influences of classical, soul, and jazz.

O’List left the band before the recording of their second album, by which time Davy O’List had left the band, tired of competing for attention with Emerson, and went on to become a Zelig-like figure in music history.

First he joined Pink Floyd, replacing Syd Barrett on a package tour with Jimi Hendrix, then joined Jethro Tull when Mick Abrahams left them, moving on to Roxy Music – he played on their first BBC session – before being replaced with Phil Manzanera.

He later played on one of Ferry’s solo albums – that’s his guitar solo on The ‘In’ Crowd – and joined Jet, getting the boot just as they became Radio Stars.