The musician had been suffering from cancer and died in London on Tuesday.

His friend Deborah Owen said: "Eric was very much a self-made man. He couldn't read music but if you asked him to play anything he could do it straight away."

"He had an extraordinary gift," she added.

Woolfson - who is survived by his wife Hazel, with whom he has two daughters - largely taught himself to play piano and spent the early part of his career working as a songwriter in London.