“I thought it would never amount to much, and it certainly wouldn’t interfere with the band. How wrong I was!” Steve Howe’s pre-Yes band were derailed by a single their vocalist was never meant to sing

Tomorrow: Keith West front; left to right behind, John Junior Wood, Steve Howe and John Twink Alder.

If anyone forgets how experimental – and therefore weird – the 1960s were in the pop charts, there’s no need to look further than Excerpt From A Teenage Opera, which reached Number 2 in 1967.

It’s weird enough that it was the story of a local trademan and his passion for serving his village, who’s only truly appreciated after dies at the age of 82, leaving the area’s kids asking, ’Grocer Jack, Grocer Jack, is it true what mummy says, You won’t come back, oh-no-no?‘ Its effect on the careers of Steve Howe and Keith West was even wierder.