By the time King discovered he had contracted HIV himself, drugs were available that meant the disease was no longer a death sentence. Nevertheless, he ended up in rehab after a breakdown that seems to have been brought about by seeing so many friends die: “I’d just suffered so much grief. Survivor’s guilt.” This is a brilliant book by a brilliant man. A magician with perfect taste. Thank God I met him. He is gold dust!’

This is a brilliant book by a brilliant man. A magician with perfect taste. Thank God I met him. He is gold dust!'Meanwhile, Ono emerges from The Tastemaker as an absolute hoot, a hilarious eccentric who encourages King to take magic mushrooms before a business meeting with a music industry executive. “Oh my God, I took off halfway through lunch,” he laughs. “I was flying. And Yoko leans across the table and says” – his voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper – ‘Good, aren’t they?’”

He spent more than sixty years in the music industry working as promotion man, creative director, label chief and personal manager to some of the biggest stars out of the UK. Tony eventually repairs to America where he works with John Lennon and Ringo Starr on their solo work. I suppose I was always very straightforward, a straight speaker,” King says. “I wasn’t an artist but I understood the artists, I was in their camp. I think I had an innate understanding of what artists needed, and I didn’t put up with bullshit.”An out gay man before the 1967 Sexual Offences Act decriminalised homosexuality – “I knew no other way, to be honest” – it was King who encouraged his friend Freddie Mercury to tell his partner, Mary Austin, that he was gay. Meanwhile, King’s unabashed flamboyance had a profound effect on Elton John, who, when they first met, was a struggling singer-songwriter given to dressing down: “Tony would have attracted attention in the middle of a Martian invasion,” John subsequently recalled. “I wanted to be that stylish and exotic and outrageous.”

He recovered and ended his career working with Elton John, overseeing his album sleeves and working on the staging of his Las Vegas show and ongoing farewell tour. Now retired, he says that writing The Tastemaker was a strange experience, tinged with sadness and regret: many of the characters in it are gone; it ends with the death of Charlie Watts. Then again, King achieved what he set out to do. Leaving school at the age of sixteen to start his career in the music industry at Decca Records, Tony King would soon find himself becoming a close friend and confidante to some of the world's biggest artists - a far cry from his childhood days in Eastbourne.

The Tastemaker has a nice conversational tone. It is warm, full of good humor and insight like the man himself.