"There might have been personal things in my life right here, because I wanted to strip things down. Another inspiration was a lot of country singer-songwriters. I’m friends with a guy named Terry Allen, who’s a great, very eccentric songwriter. Both of us have worked with Lucinda Williams, who everybody knows is an incredible songwriter. There’s an early group called the Flatlanders, and their first records or demos were just amazing. I was really immersed in these people who were writing very simply, as far as their musical arrangements, and very heartfelt. I was getting a lot of inspiration from them."

"This is a film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger that was called Stairway to Heaven when it was released in America. I saw it as a child and it really fascinated me, the idea that death was debatable, and it also drilled into my mind how life was so precious and flimsy. I also love how all the famous characters from history are seen in Heaven taking part in the debate. Powell/Pressburger are amazing filmmakers, and I wish we had more like them these days. “Magical realism” is a rather trite phrase, but their films are both magical and real."

"Paul Farmer is one of the most impressive people I’ve had the honor of getting to know. He’s an amazing advocate for the health of the world’s poorest people, and he co-founded a system of health clinics in Haiti that reaches more than a million people in some of that country’s hardest-to-reach places. Melinda and I took our kids to Haiti this year so they could meet Paul and see the work he leads. In this book he really opens your eyes to the vast differences between the health of the rich and the health of the poor."

"Definitely. And I said a minute ago that I wasn’t going to mention anyone younger than me, but I have to say Jonathan is younger than me. Actually, for the first long period that we worked with him, I assumed he was about twenty years younger than he really is. I remember being electrified by seeing Something Wild back in 1986. Jonathan presented a portrait of an America that was garishly and gorgeously colorful—the colors, the characters, the actors were all so fresh, so delicious—it was an amazing world in which anything could happen."

"I love it. Bernard Edwards is one of my favourite bass players; that bass-line is super funky, there can’t be a better one. And of course this is written and produced by Nile Rodgers. It’s basically a Chic track with Carly Simon on vocals. I think she’s pretty amazing, but I’m not a huge fan. I’d always associated her with being kind of country, and a little soft pop – which is pretty – and had no idea she was capable of making music like this. It’s a totally different vocal style, on a whole new level. This song is incredible."

"I discovered Christopher Isherwood in college. His writing style is so direct, warm, and inclusive. There's one passage in this book, published in 1964, that has really stayed with me — the description of America. The narrator is a British man teaching at a California college. He and a few colleagues are having a conversation, and an American woman is saying how romantic Mexico is. She's critical of America. The protagonist argues with her, talking about the virtues of the United States. He says that its beauty is in its abstraction. I thought that was an amazing insight — possibly true and compelling at least."

"The Man Who Recorded the World is a biography of Alan Lomax, who's the folklorist in the United States who was the first person to record people like Leadbelly and various other blues artists. He travelled around the South in the Forties with a wax cylinder machine to record these artists who no-one had ever recorded before. It's amazing to read as a producer and engineer, but also as someone who travels a lot and is exposed to a lot of different music. It's by John Szwed, who also did a biography of Miles Davis."

"This came in the wake of Remain In Light as a side project. I'd seen Talking Heads at Eric's, which was my world back then. Although slightly older people said it was like Can and introducing sound collages, I didn't think Can were that funky, but this is. It was quite an amazing album really, and freaked everybody out when it was released. 'The Jezebel Spirit' and 'America Is Waiting', I guess, were the standout tracks that I got, but the end track ['Mountain Of Needles'] as well, which had slowed-down sounds and voices. I thought it was brilliant."

"A true diva and genius, of course. This is one the best autobiographies I've ever read, recounting Simone’s upbringing in North Carolina in a non-segregated community; her schooling as a child prodigy by a Russian grand dame piano teacher; playing rough bars in evening dress and telling the winos to shut up or she wouldn't play (and they did!); to the absolute shock when she didn't get into Juilliard because of her color. By the time she's describing writing “Mississippi Goddam,” all my hairs were standing on end! A powerful woman, powerful activist, and amazing musician."