"When you’ve got a favourite artist, you want to know everything about them, from their favourite colour to what they have for breakfast, and you get that with this Nick Cave documentary. It’s clear how every detail has been carefully and thoughtfully curated by him. I love the glimpse into the friendship between him and Warren Ellis when they’re discussing the time they met Nina Simone, and she said what she wanted to have after her gig: “I want champagne, cocaine and sausages!” They look like little boys when telling the story. It’s a beautiful insight into their world outside of music-making"

"An old French film with Simone Signoret, and I think Paul Meurisse is in it. It’s the film that terrified me as child, with this very simple scene where she pulls a curtain back in an upstairs window, and he’s watching from the yard. That was actually probably the first horror film I ever saw. It was a very scary. I was a small child. I just remember the simplicity of that moment when she pulled that curtain back. So there’s that, and they did the remake with Sharon Stone that was not very successful and wasn’t very well made."

"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."

"Along with Patti Smith and Mary Margaret O'Hara, I would say that Nina Simone possesses the greatest voice I have ever heard. Nina's voice, my god, on songs like 'Sinner Man' or 'I Put A Spell On You' is beyond compare. If you really want to get Nina Simone, you need to get on YouTube and watch the early footage. There is 25 minutes of footage of a performance she did in England, after Martin Luther King had been shot, and she is playing to mainly a white audience. It is the greatest set of protest songs I have ever seen. It puts Dylan or anyone else into the shade. If you wish to see how to change the world with music, look at this dignified woman holding back her rage at what had been done to her people. [Fighting back tears] Nina Simone carried the weight of black experience more fully than anyone else I have heard. There is also some amazing footage of her dancing with the audience. It's when she was less bitter and her bipolar disorder hadn't kicked in, and she is dancing and singing. When you watch her move, you can see the music is in every part of her body. With the songs Nina wrote, her position in the civil rights movement, and then the fact she became broken, it is just one of the most devastating stories. [Crying]. But, her voice, fucking hell. And the song 'Ain't Got No, I Got Life' – on which she lists all the things that she hasn't got, but then lists all the things she does have, which are her passion and her spirit – gets me every time. It's important people go and check out the early footage on YouTube. When she sings 'I Put A Spell On You', you fucking know she has put a spell on that guy, who was her ex-husband. You do not fucking mess with that woman. I heard a lovely anecdote about Angelo Badalamenti, who was a desperately impoverished guy who had just given up his job to become a songwriter. He had been earning nothing for 18 months, and had sent some songs to Nina Simone. He got a call from her manager saying that Nina would like to meet him. He went to the place at the arranged time, walked into a room and there was this amazing lioness, lying on a sofa dressed in leopard skin. She said, ""I hear you have some songs for me. Play me one."" There was no piano, so he had to sing to her. He sang about a minute of 'I Hold No Grudge' and she said, ""I will take that"" and asked him if had any more. He sang another song for about 30 seconds, and she said, ""I will take that too"", and he sang a snippet from another one, which she also liked. Within two weeks, she had recorded all three songs and launched his career as a writer. Angelo told me that story when I made an album with him."

"As an artist, Nina Simone has inspired me so much. I think she was my introduction to artistry. Especially coming from a woman, it really changed the way I viewed music and gave me an incentive to learn piano. I was probably about nine or 10 when I first heard her music – it was my Dad that played me a live rendition of a song that she’d done two days after Dr Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. It was called “Why? (The King of Love Is Dead)”. I remember waiting for my Mum outside work, he used to play that song. As soon as I heard her voice I was just hooked on it. ""'I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl' is one of my favourite songs of hers to sing. I have been thinking about [covering it]! It has so much room in it melodically to freestyle, maybe improvising some of the lyrics to make it more relevant to my life. I’d probably do it just on piano instead of with the full band. There’s times when I’ve seen Nina combine classical music with jazz, so I’d probably attempt some of that. It’s such an open song – I think that’s what I love about it. I just love the space in in it. Even the title’s quite metaphoric: sexy, but quite poetic at the same time. ""Nina Simone showed me that there are really no rules with music. The more you learn in any direction, it can only empower what you’re doing. Reading about her history, at first her dream was to be a classical pianist! It’s so effortless – she’s not even looking at the keys, she’s not even thinking! And then she’s singing a pop song on top of a classical jazz fusion! She definitely inspired me to become accomplished where I can, just to add more freedom to express myself more deeply."