"I bought this at university, mainly because of the cover art, I admit. I had a very small record collection then. You did in those days, and because you didn't have a lot, you'd play every record again and again. My dad, Tom, was a bandleader, so there was a lot of jazz in the house. He liked people like Count Basie and Woody Herman, but he stopped at Coltrane. He found the modernism of it difficult, but I loved it. It felt like a big thing for me, when I was a precocious teenager. The first jazz I had found for myself!

This is a real fork-in-the-road album for jazz, too, from 1958, a proper boundary between hard bop and the future. The three-part horn arrangements are something I tried to emulate on the first track of [Everything But The Girl's 1984 album] Each And Every One, too – in my own way of course. The album was only his second, and him early on as a session leader. There's so much life in it, and so many ideas. 
"

"One of the greatest players to ever pick up the guitar. Oddly enough, he started out as a drummer. Figure that one out. Not only that, but he was left-handed and a lot of the time he played right-handed models flipped upside-down. “Albert had been releasing singles for quite a while, since the mid-‘50s, but he’s probably best known for the phenomenal recordings he did for Stax in the ‘60s. This was his second album for Stax, and even though it’s comprised of singles, it works as a whole album. “And dig the backing band - Booker T And The MGs. You can’t ask for much more. Again, I call this album part of the ‘Mississippi mystery.’ How did Albert King get that sound? I don’t know. But it’s all right here. Songs like Born Under A Bad Sign, Crosscut Saw, The Hunter…man, they’re just the coolest. Guitar players who want to study a one-of-a-kind tone and hear a man who really knew how to bend a note can’t go wrong with Albert King.”"

"What a crazy title! It’s not a surf album at all, of course. I think it’s basically a reissue of his previous album [Let’s Hide Away And Dance Away With Freddy King], which featured his big hit Hide Away. “I guess they stuck the surf picture and title on the record to capitalize on The Beach Boys and the whole West Coast craze that was going on at the time – which Freddy King had nothing to do with. “Although Freddy later became known for being a fine vocalist, he was one of the best blues guitarists ever, and this album really shows what a creative and aggressive guitar player he was. Between the lead lines are little rhythm lines, and they’re all played by Freddy! He could fill in the blanks all by himself. Freddy found all the right notes – nothing was superfluous. When we tour, I make sure to have this on the iPod, so we get to treat the audience and the crew to Freddy King before we come on."

"I saw him on the Jay Leno show, and I thought 'wow, this is a good band'. It was like the Kings of Leon, southern rock, and he came on with that thing and I thought 'I wonder where this kid's from, he must be from the South somewhere'. And then when Jay Leno says 'that was great', Paolo says [adopts Scottish accent] 'thank you very much', and I thought 'he's fucking Scottish!' So it's great, but the album he did as well, that's great. I play that - there's so many great things on there. Again, it's fresh, it's different from other things, so I hope he can come up with more, because he writes as well. And Ethan John [Jones's producer for Spirit In The Room] produced the album, which I didn't know, when I heard the album. There's a jazz band thing, a traditional jazz band thing. 'Simple Things In Life', I like that, about going round to his mother's for tea, it's great. He paints a picture, you can see him do it."

"My old man got me into The Streets. I was quite young when they first came out and I remember him having them on in the car constantly. Original Pirate Material was a complete game-changer for me, I can recite that whole album word for word. ‘Blinded by the Lights’ was on the second album, A Grand Don't Come for Free, and I could probably recite that whole album as well, I think it’s one of the greatest concept albums ever written. “With ‘Blinded by the Lights’ I just love the tune, it really catches a theme and I can really relate to how he’s feeling in it. It’s that feeling of being pilled-up in a club, of losing control and not really knowing what’s going on, it’s a big tune. “I really like the storytelling element of it and that was an inspiration to me. Storytelling in a song is a complete art and I definitely don’t feel like I’ve managed to do it as good as this does, I don’t know if anyone ever will."

"If I had to think of a Bowie album, then this would be the one that pinpointed when I was at my most susceptible. I would have been 14 or 15, and I just remember carrying it into school and feeling very proud to have that vinyl under my arm, and feeling very different to the other kids. The first actual album I bought was The Man Who Sold The World, which I still have a real soft spot for, but I wouldn't say it's as developed as those later albums. Everybody talks about Bowie's golden period as the early 70s, and you tend to forget about everything beyond Scary Monsters, and that's the way I feel too – I think he was by far at his most creative period at that time. It's difficult to pick one album from that period; you could have any of them from Hunky Dory to Scary Monsters. But for me, this is the record that left the biggest mark combined with my age."

"Being from the South and being from that whole No Limit/Cash Money movement you’re a Wayne fan. You give him his props just for being associated with the Hot Boyz. It was at a period when I had just gotten to college. ""I had a suitemate that ended up being one of my good friends in life, and he was putting me onto these Lil Wayne Squad Up mixtapes. I started really noticing his lyrical ability. I noticed that something had changed between his younger Hot Boyz days and then. ""After that, we got out and went home for the summer. He was like, ‘Did you hear this Lil Wayne Tha Carter?’ and he sent me his album. I’ll never forget hearing that intro thinking, ‘This shit is crazy.’ That album and his first Dedication mixtape was what got me sold on him to the point where I was going out and praising Lil Wayne, like, ‘This nigga is the best.’ This album represents that time when he started to hit that monster level."

"I often say there's a fight going on for best debut album ever, it might be The Velvet Underground & Nico or it might be Marquee Moon… there's a constant scuffle going on. Marquee Moon is a masterpiece. To come out with that album at that time with punk kicking off… It was cerebral and virtuoso, largely everything that punk wasn't. I remember I went to see them doing the tour when it came to the Free Trade Hall, and they were just another one of those bands who were fully formed when punk happened. If you hear 'Little Johnny Jewel' – there's nothing like that song that comes from anywhere else. I went to see them when they opened for Patti Smith at the Academy and I spent most of the night just watching Lloyd's guitar work. He is one of the greatest guitarists ever; and he's a guitar teacher now in New York. It's just a remarkable album, filmic. This came out when I was 16 and I was a roadie for The Fall in 1977."