"Here we are in 2016. Having enjoyed a rather robust excursion through the ‘70s, it seems like yesterday. As the clock swings around, things tend to reappear – but in this case revisiting the ‘70s is certainly not nostalgic. The ‘70s was a period of style, statement and fashion that probably should not be repeated. It was horrible! The oranges and the browns, the suede combos. I think Charles is challenging a prospective buyer to see through it, to get beyond the repellent quality of the horrible ‘70s, saying, ""If you dare buy this, you probably know to avoid what you're seeing. Let's get into what you're listening to."" 

From the ‘70s what was salvageable on the musical side was truly good. Here in London on Greek Street there was a really cool spot named Madame Jojo's. It was closed up not so very long ago. There was a great northern soul DJ named Keb Darge on Thursday nights who I got to be friendly with. Seventies pop music was intolerable but what we can now embrace as northern soul was something you could really sink your teeth into with satisfaction. He had the deepest record box on those Thursday nights. Recently I tried to take my lovely sweetheart Ms Gilligan to experience it but Keb was absent and instead there was a celebration of transvestism. We had a great time, but the following weekend we were at Camden Market and I bumped into none other than Keb who was still on a quest, trading records. The vinyl game is still vibrant and it's mostly alive at second-hand shops and flea markets. Vinyl trading reigns supreme."

"That first album, that sounds great to me. The first one we heard was ‘Heartbreak Hotel', because I don't think they ever released the Sun records - the RCA records came out first. We had a great friendship - I met him in 1965 the first year I went to the States. He was doing a movie at Paramount Studios, and I was at Paramount to talk about a song for a movie and they said 'Elvis Presley is filming here today, and he heard that you're coming over, and he'd like to meet you.' Like to meet me? I tell you, I didn't even know he knew I existed. I had three singles out at the time: ‘It's Not Unusual', ‘What's New Pussycat?' and a ballad called ‘With These Hands', and he had the three of them. He was walking towards me singing ‘With These Hands' - [impersonates Elvis] 'with these hands'. And then he said, 'How do you sing like that?' And I said, 'It's your fault, you were partly to blame!' He said, 'Well, you know, I come from Mississippi, I was born there, I was brought up with this stuff. What's it like in Wales? Are there any black people there?' I said, 'Only when they come out of the coal mine! No, it's listening to American music on the radio - that's where I've got it from.' He couldn't believe that somebody could sing like me not being influenced first hand, like he was - the gospel thing, listening to gospel groups and blues clubs like that. He preferred a lot of the later things that he did. I said, 'That early stuff on Sun Records, man, I mean jeez'. He said, 'Ah, it was very primitive - we didn't have very good equipment and it's a lot better now."" And I said, 'But there's fire there', and he said 'I'm glad you think so."" But he didn't do them on stage. I said, 'You want to open with them, open with ‘Blue Suede Shoes'.' But no, he wouldn't do it. Then one time, on his own special, he starts to go into some ‘Whole Lotta Shakin'' and then he goes on into another, and he said, 'We could do this all night', so you could see he was really wanting to do it. But he wasn't thrilled with those early recordings, he thought he made better records later on.#"

"It's like with David Bowie - there was a bit of me that didn't want to include The Smiths because of comparisons, but I couldn't not. The Smiths were a very important band to me when I was 15, 16. It was perfect timing. In the 80s, when The Smiths were still around, I was the right age for what he was singing about to be relevant to me. I was going through adolescence so the resonance was even stronger. So yes, The Queen Is Dead. Did I choose it because it's my favourite Smiths album or because it's recognised as being the best? There's probably a bit of both in there. It's funny actually, looking back on it there are so many great Smiths songs, but there's so much on singles and B-sides that weren't on the albums, which was definitely an influence on how we did things with Suede. I remember when this first came out it was such an exciting thing. I remember hearing 'Bigmouth Strikes Again' on the radio and thinking, 'Wow'. It was a real fan moment. I remember queuing up at Rounder Records in Burgess Hill, and then playing it, and going through the lyrics. 'Cemetry Gates' was the song that I loved the most at the time, back in 1986. I thought the wordplay was amazing. Obviously Morrissey is known as a great lyricist but I think he's probably the greatest lyricist. I don't think Dylan is in the same league, with his songs about the 'Jack of Hearts' and things like that. Some of his lyrics are great, but they're not as powerful as Morrissey's. He had a brilliantly balanced dance between the wit and darkness. It was never too comical; well, apart from 'Frankly, Mr Shankly'. You know what I mean - it was this amazing tightrope walk of being slightly ridiculous but incredibly engaging and incredibly serious. And Johnny Marr's guitar playing is amazing. He's one of the greatest ever. Incredible melodies and the craftsmanship of his guitar playing without it ever sounding boring. It never got into Steve Vai territory. It was always tasteful without ever being dull. In the context of the time when musically everything was so cheap-sounding, The Smiths were making - for want of a better word - really organic-sounding music, but it was still very exciting and strangely quite ground-breaking. They were a really inspiring band for so many people, and for a couple of years they were the greatest, they really were."