“I did tours sleeping in a tent to save money. I asked this family if I could pitch up in their garden. That helped me get my first P-Bass”: Rock ’n’ roll's ‘Forrest Gump’Leo Lyons shares the story of Ten Years After and their iconic Woodstock set

Leo Lyons photographed with his iconic 1962 Fender Jazz Bass.

Is there a more unassuming rock star than Leo Lyons? In an industry often filled with braggarts and blowhards, the soft-spoken 82-year-old bassist lets his lifetime achievements do the talking. And what achievements they are.

Having partnered guitarist Alvin Lee – aka ‘Captain Speed Fingers’, for self-evident reasons – at the dawn of the 1960s, Lyons shipped British blues across the water with Ten Years After, before igniting Woodstock with the warp-speed rendition of I’m Going Home that stands among the festival’s most electrifying moments.