Cat Stevens

"Eastern Sounds is historically a very important record for me because it contained a riff, which I stole for what was to be my first hit single, ‘I Love My Dog’! I just couldn’t get that melody out of my mind! Eventually I wrote my song based on this record and thought nobody would find out. Later I owned up to it and paid Yusef his royalties for that song. Interestingly he also took his name from the Prophet Joseph/Yousef. We both embraced Islam, but he converted much earlier than I had, I didn’t think about religion at the time."

"If I were stuck on a desert island, I’d find it hard to let go of this record! It encapsulates every part of the perfect beauty of classical music, particularly Bach, yet it uses that with electronic synthesiser. It’s a totally new world, bringing the future and I think it’s fantastic. It also featured on A Clockwork Orange, which featured the 9th Symphony by Beethoven and is also one of my all-time favourite records. But that wasn’t on Switched On Bach, so I had to source the origin of that later."

"King Kong was a musical from South Africa that had an all-black cast. It was a fusion of South African traditional music, soul and jazz. It was so powerful when I listened to it for all those nights. I fell in love with that musical, which was a very big part of my life. I think [I was drawn to] the authenticity of the voice of what people call world music or ethnic music coming from the earth, of the people, the hope and their struggle. South Africans are so strong with their emotions and I think Africa itself is an amazing, inspirational place for music, because they live and breathe it. It was for me, a connection with the soul."

"Nobody can underestimate the world changing impact that The Beatles had on my generation. It was so powerful and revolutionary. It enabled us all to see the possibility of picking up a guitar and expressing ourselves in any way you wanted. And they were the pioneers of change and innovation. They were symbolic in the sense that we were all looking for something new and they provided it. When I heard Please Please Me, it was like it was from another world. This album represents the beginning, when they had been playing clubs and were first capturing that creative energy and raw vocals. This was the bare naked, early origin of many of these artists in this piece of music and I loved it. Of course, they went on to do many things after that, but this was the kernel, the seed of what they were to do later."

"Nobody had been doing intricacy and harmony, arrangements and detail in the recording studio as much as Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys. He just made us all think again, certainly to stand up and listen again too, just like The Beatles did with Sgt. Peppers. Pet Sounds was also influential in my career because Mike Hurst, the producer who discovered me if you like, was absolutely infected with this album. So when it came to recording me, he tried his best to make it sound like Pet Sounds. That’s why I have such large arrangements in my early songs. It was not really something that was connected to me, but rather to that record, so it was quite interesting about the history of that."

"The Band – they happened at a time when I was in my most purpose driven period, which was after I came out of hospital having being cured of tuberculosis. I was looking up everything that was going on and one of the albums I got was this one. It was just amazing how this authentic expression of folk rock or electrified folk complemented unique songwriting. It’s like if you listen to the Dubliners – that’s almost the equivalent of this American style. So yeah, that was big."

"Talking Book blew me away when I was going through a dry period in my writing. I heard Stevie Wonder and thought that I couldn’t improve on what he’s done, he’s such a genius! I just fell in love with it, it was black soul music from that era, but sounds totally, totally now. One of things he developed was the protection of funk through the electronics of synthesiser, keyboard and singing. I think Sly had a lot to do with influencing Stevie at the time as well."

"He was the great innovator and the forerunner to make black music ‘acceptable’ to the general white population of America, and the world. When he came out, you just couldn’t ignore the impact of his voice and delivery of music with piano and arrangements. Putting him and Little Richard together, they’re kind of similar in a way because they had such a big influence. But I can’t ignore the contribution that Ray Charles has made to soul and music at large. If there’s one person that I could emulate with my voice, it would be Ray Charles, perhaps with a little bit of Nina Simone thrown in. I never saw myself as a white boy singer."