“She was very quiet, mainly talking to John and not the musicians,” says Voormann. “There was a certain distance between us. She wasn’t used to being in the studio with rock ’n’ roll musicians. She asked [Rolling Stones saxophonist] Bobby Keys, ‘I want you to play like a frog!’ He thought she was crazy. If it were a jazz guy, that would have been ok, but that was typical of her approach: ‘Play it with two pianos!’ 

“She was very artistic. Once she said quietly to John, when the mikes were open: ‘John, they don’t understand your music.’ We’re hearing the song for the first time, trying to find our way around, and we hear this statement in our cans. That wasn’t particularly cool. She appeared cold, but once you know her, she’s very inspiring, funny and enthusiastic.”

Those albums stand up well. “There’s a four-record span in the 70s which I think is fantastic,” says Gibbard. “Feeling the Space (1973) was the first record of hers I bought. I was arrested by the cover. I was expecting that avant-garde stuff, but it starts out with this incredibly beautiful midtempo ballad, ‘Growing Pains’, and much more traditional arrangements than I expected. It really sucked me in. I would recommend that record, and also Approximately Infinite Universe, which gives the best encapsulation of the breadth of her work.”

“She’s done a wide variety of music, and it’s not all going to appeal to everyone,” says Byrne, who performs Ono’s Who Has Seen The Wind with Yo La Tengo on Ocean Child. “You have to be open to it. Some of the stuff is like a visceral gut-punch. She has a very open and curious approach, which is really inspirational.”

Like Byrne, Wayne Coyne regards Ono as an avatar for generations of experimental music makers that followed in her wake. “I heard a lot of her when I was young,” he says. “My older brothers would give me a ride to school in the mid-70s. They would smoke three joints and listen to the Plastic Ono Band Yoko stuff. By the time we were in The Flaming Lips, we loved her – and loved that she stayed in that insane range.” 

Coyne has since worked with Ono, both in the studio and on stage. She remains a febrile, unpredictable presence. “Our connection is through [her son] Sean. Yoko is interested, but when we’ve worked with her it’s pretty quick. For the things we do together, I’m 1,000 per cent prepared, and then whatever she wants to do, we’ll go back and forth and say, ‘Just do it!’ I know her range, and it’s not a small range.”