I remember asking someone… “So what do you reckon is the best album ever created?”

Without hesitation, they said ‘Astral Weeks’ by Van Morrison.

One test of this is to try and play it on a guitar and see if you can get anywhere near it in terms of arrangement or performance. It's impossible unless you are Van the Man.

I get the feeling this man does not give a toss what anybody thinks about him or his art. He just does what he feels like doing and puts it out there - a life lesson for us all perhaps.

17 years old, black tie party at a friends house in Balderstone and we’re all having a go at snogging.

On the family record player is Bat out of Hell by Meat Loaf, The Police by The Police and this.

I’d been a boarding school boy pretty well all my formative years. But in the 6th form, back at home in Blackburn, at last, there were girls. This album became the soundtrack to all that happened as a result. ‘Yesterday’s Gone’ is as ingrained in me as ‘I Vow to Thee My Country’.

If I am asked to give advice on marriage to a young guy I always say this “Find out what it is your wife really values and make it your business to see that you value it too - and all will go well for you in marriage!”

This is Esther’s favourite album and in many ways, it’s a bit like her, so I love it too.

I made it my business too.

Going to boarding school aged 7 wasn't easy but it was made a whole lot better by the headmaster Paddy Malloy.

Every evening he would open up his study and boys would pile in, grab a chessboard and start playing against each other on the carpet - gradually making their way towards Paddy by winning, where they would then get to play him and have a cup of coffee from his pot.

There was only ever classical music playing on his old record player in the background. This became my favourite and on one school outing to Preston, we got to hear the Philharmonic Orchestra play it live.

When I arrived at Blackburn Grammar, I quickly fell into a gang of friends who were not only hilarious but also absolutely loved music, particularly prog rock and heavy metal.

It opened up a whole new world to me and it was thanks to an amazing guy called Phil Howarth that I came across Jethro Tull.

Ian Anderson, the lead singer, is one of the most wholeheartedly expressive musicians I’ve ever come across.

So have a listen on YouTube and watch him do his thing!

So I had just got married but we didn’t yet have kids - so our evening meals in our kitchen in Brixton were pretty well always candle-lit. It was a bit like being out for dinner every night!

And this album helped transport the experience from South London to an Archipelago off the West African coast.

Isn’t that the job of music - to transport us without all the cost and hassle?

There are certain albums that we only ever play at Christmas.

It reminds me of my years at uni in Aberdeen - all the great Scottish country dances.

And Eileen Stirling who introduced my to this mercurial folk singer-songwriter.

I am doing my A-levels and I'm on a coach heading for Betws y Coed in Wales on a field trip.

Sitting next to the girl I wish loved me more and this album is playing, ratcheting up the whole experience in my heart.

How can life be so painful and yet beautifully emotional at the same time?

I’m 18 in Kenya, staying with some wealthy friends I’ve met at University.

We go to a nightclub called Bubbles on the outskirts of Nairobi and I’ve had too many Dowa’s to drink.

The music is African and when I get up to dance, I’m overtaken with the vibe of it all. Being thousands of miles from home with my guard down, I make shapes I never knew I had in me and have loved African music ever since.

This guy, from Senegal, is one of its godfathers.

I dedicate this to one of the loveliest early girlfriends I had.

She was called Carol and she had an older brother who was off the scale in terms of being both hard and cool.

He liked me but did not think I was quite up to being the boyfriend of his younger sister so I think he brokered the break up.

David Bowie made sense of it all for me - not sure how - but he did.

When I first came to London aged 22, I felt insecure about my lack of knowledge of media and the arts.

One of the many things I did to combat this was to go into HMV on Oxford Street and ask for ‘the best albums ever’ in all sorts of genres.

The motivation behind it was admittedly a bit sad but the outcome was great because I got to hear lots of amazing music that I would otherwise never have been exposed to - and this Argentinian tango album is a perfect illustration of that.

I was 28 and exhausted after a long commercial film shoot for Ford. I headed out to Spain to recover and fell in love with a small seaside town called Conil and a girl called Charlotte.

It was such a cathartic time for me that whenever I put this album on, I am back there and usually blub my eyes out.

Spain healed me and in the same nightclub, every night until 4 am we just danced our nuts off while we sweated out vodka and tonic.

It detoxified me of grossly over-straining myself in pursuit of a career and all that goes with it.