We loved the sexy, hard-as-nails Denise LaSalle for creating a series of titanic grooves, and also because we were never certain that she couldn’t have kicked our ass.

It didn’t help that a different singer was featured on each single from the Alan Parsons Project’s smash album, which arrived in June 1982.

“Perdido” was supposed to be a live showcase for Charlie Parker. Then Ella Fitzgerald – who would have been 100 today – stepped up to the mic.

Alphonse Mouzon was a seminal force in the birth of fusion, and also had a notable impact on rock.

Greg Lake was recording Emerson Lake and Palmer’s “Lucky Man” alone. Then Keith Emerson returned from the pub – and Lake had an idea.

This gravelly marvel of a singer, Leon Russell leaves us as the consummate musician – and a never-ebbing rebel.

I returned to a 2009 live album, Leonard Cohen’s first newly recorded release since 2004’s ‘Dear Heather,’ during the first dark evening without him.

Ex-Wings guitarist Henry McCullough suffered a devastating heart attack in 2012 and then endured a lengthy period of partial recovery.

The records, those sounds – even in George Martin’s awful absence – will remain, forever.

Science fiction helped Paul Kantner escape the drudgery of his childhood existence, then it fired his imagination as Jefferson Airplane transformed into Jefferson Starship.