‘Did he really play on Petula Clark’s Downtown?’ Stewart Lee on his guitar hero Derek Bailey

He was a genius of improvised music, a performer who abandoned composition – and wondered why anyone would by his records. Comedian Stewart Lee celebrates the eccentric life of his great inspiration

Today’s episode of BBC Radio 4’s Great Lives is my third attempt to use my limited comedy fame to foist the non-idiomatic music-making of the Sheffield-born guitarist Derek Bailey on an unsuspecting public. In 2009, I chose Derek as my specialist subject on Celebrity Mastermind, beating the comedian John Thomson, who chose James Bond villains. To be fair, I would also have won if I had done his round. I was getting questions like, “Which Japanese duo collaborated with Derek Bailey on the 1995 album Saisoro?” and John was getting, “What colour was Blofeld’s cat?”

Musical minds immeasurably superior to mine have grappled more succinctly with the enigma of Derek, who died in 2005 at the age of 75. Writing in the Quietus four years ago, Jennifer Lucy Allan explained: “Derek Bailey is one antidote for anyone who thinks they’ll never understand improvised music. His guitar playing is that which requires a surrendering to your own ears. It is what it is, and that’s exactly what he intended it to be.” I, in turn, listen to Derek and think: “This, whatever it is, is resolutely and implacably this.” And that is what I, as a comedian, have tried to steal from it.