A lot of the music that I have listened to has been blues and I remember my first real introduction into the blues world was round 1975 at a mate’s house and he played me his uncle’s copy of the 1968 self titled record by Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac. It had a song called “Shake Your Money Maker” on it. I enjoyed that song and the rest of the record and it opened the door into my appreciation of blues that is still a healthy appreciation today.

I was staying with a friend in London in 1977 when it was announced that Elvis has left the building – feet first. I did have an Elvis Presley Greatest Hits record and liked it – but I wasn’t a huge fan, but it was strange to see the reaction to his death – it’s the first time I’d seen such an effect from a celebrity dying. Elvis Presley – too young to die, too fat to live. Ho hum.

When I was studying for my o-levels (1977), I remember that I used to listen to Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” quite a lot, but I can’t remember why or what I got from it. I don’t remember it being a favourite album – it was just something to listen to whilst revising – maybe it was the lack of lyrics that made it the record of choice. It was around that time that I also used to listen to Camels, “The Snow Goose” – again, it may have been the lack of lyrics that made it attractive to listen to when supposedly studying.

It was when I was about 17 that I bought my first copy of Pink Floyd's 1973 masterpiece, “Dark Side of the Moon” which is an album that I still like today. Liking the album also includes me liking the live version from the 1995 CD, “The Pulse”. Another version that I like is “Dub Side of the Moon” (2003) where a number of reggae acts (under the name The Easy Star All Stars) each perform one of the tracks to make the CD of the album. “Dark Side of the Moon” is often picked as a favourite album and it is incredible that it continues to attract audiences still. I don’t know what it is about the CD – it just works – as simple as that. It has to be my choice NUMBER 3.

Now let’s take a moment for me to mention the beautiful and talented Kate Bush. I have been a fan since 1978 when she released “Wuthering Heights” from the wonderful ‘A Kick Inside’ album. Kate appears to live in a strange world but through her talent and music, we get the pleasure of seeing snippets of it. I have loved most of what she’s done and at different points I have favoured different albums of hers. Let’s be honest here (I resisted saying “let’s not beat around the bush here”), I love the woman. She’s only three years older than me and I had always assumed that we’d end up married when we met – but the meeting never happened, so she’s had to settle for somebody else. Because she has been a constant in my world for so long, I needed to have something of hers in my top 10, so I’ll add 2005’s double CD called “Aerial” as my NUMBER 4. It is a masterpiece and offers so much - I hope that we haven’t heard the last of her.

Back in 1979, I left school and got my first job. My school had been Gateway Sixth Form College and it was next to Leicester Polytechnic and me and my mates used to go to the discos at the Polytechnic pretending to be students there. It was at that time when I fell into listening to what other people liked and behaving how other people behaved. We all have to learn from somewhere and if I had my time again, I certainly wouldn’t have learned by watching drunk friendless students, but I was young and didn’t know any better. I guess that the scenes that played out at University discos were repeated around the country - the same music and actions could be seen in any dark, smoky student campus. I think that my lowest point came when the lights came on at the end of one night and I realised that I was playing air-guitar to “Freebird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd – what a sad tragic I must have been. Sigh.

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom as around that time, I did discover lots of music that excited me. There was a group called The Crusaders who played soul/funk music – they had a hit with “Street Life” featuring Randy Crawford on vocals. I used to love listening to their double ‘Best Of’ record – it was fantastic and showed what a talented group of musicians they were. Unfortunately it never made it to CD, so I have never been able to relive those days – the current version of ‘Best Of’ doesn’t nearly match up to that original one.

So my teens passed with lots of glam stuff and few other genre's actually making their way into my world. I did enjoy my music, but a lot of it had a short shelf-life. And when punk arrived at the end of the 70s, I wasn't ready for it and there was little in there for me. Having said that, some great music was born out of the flames of punk.