The 91-year-old guitarist  - whose popular tutorial manual 'Play In A Day' taught the likes of Eric Clapton, Sir Paul McCartney and Brian May how to play - passed away at his home in Beaconsfield this morning (20.04.12) in South East England after a long battle with illness.

Speaking about his friend - who was awarded an OBE in the 2001 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to music - singer-and-guitarist Joe Brown said: "I am very sad to hear of the death of my dear old friend and brother Water Rat Bert Weedon who was a lovely man and a great inspiration to many British guitar players in the early days, myself included. My heart goes out to his wife Maggie and all the family."

David Arnold - who composes the music for the James Bond films - paid tribute to Weedon on his twitter page, writing "Sad news ... Bert Weedon died. Learned my first chords from Play in a Day."

Bert had solo success with 'Guitar Boogie Shuffle', 'Apache' and 'Nashville Boogie' before becoming the first solo guitar player to top the Official Top 40 album charts with '22 Golden Guitar Greats' in 1976.

He also performed with numerous artists including Sir Cliff Richard, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Rosemary Clooney, Nat King Cole and Judy Garland.