Alvin Lee stepped off the Woodstock stage in 1969 crowned the fastest guitar player alive, and the film of that blistering Ten Years After set turned a gig in a muddy field into a global legend. But the man born Graham Anthony Barnes in Nottingham in 1944 had learned his craft from his parents' American jazz and blues records, and the spectacle left him missing the quiet, intimate connection of the small clubs he played before the world knew his name. This episode traces the tension between what the industry demanded he be and what he knew he was, from forming the core of Ten Years After with bassist Leo Lyons in 1960, to the Columbia Records radio hit I'd Love to Change the World, to his stunning decision in 1973 to walk away from the band at its commercial peak.

Freed from the hit-making machine, Lee built a collaborative network outside  ...