"These were the two albums that introduced me to jazz. I knew bits and bobs but my dad was not really interested in jazz, it was never played in the house. Never heard it much on the radio. Eventually a girlfriend of mine at the time, when I was at Manchester Polytechnic, she played the Art Tatum album because her father had the Art Tatum Group Masterpieces. It's a beautiful album, it's so beautifully recorded, it represents an era before Miles, it's like jazz before Kind of Blue, it has that feeling of being slightly more traditional. But at the same time you can see the seeds of modernity within the recording, the extraordinary dexterity of Art Tatum. And once again, the engineering on these jazz records at that time is quite brilliant. I still listen to this album in its entirety. I love Ben Webster's tone. There's something very sensual about this recording. Just a beautiful thing to listen to. Kind of Blue was next on the list of the albums that I bought. And what I love about Kind Of Blue is the completeness of it. You get such joy; in a way the CD was better, because you didn't have to get up and go over to the deck and turn it over to side two, you just played it all the way through. This has been an influence on me in my attitude towards the band, and being in a band, and having a band, and what I had to face as I went through the Simply Red process. Because I realised that jazz musicians and reggae musicians and soul musicians, they don't have this peculiar . . . and I think part of it's evolved from British music journalism, actually . . . this notion that these guys in the band have to be effectively married, and there's some kind of sin created if one of them leaves or someone else comes in; it's like a national scandal, and everybody's in trauma that somebody leaves. With Miles Davis' career, he cleverly and naturally evolved over a period of years, choosing some of the greatest musicians that ever walked on the face of the earth. That again is one of the great things about Kind Of Blue – the fact you have Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans and John Coltrane, and Miles Davis on the record, and I think it's Jimmy Cobb on drums, Paul Chambers on bass. When I emerged as the only writer of the songs in Simply Red, it dawned on me and my management that we didn't have to be like the Beatles, and that you could say, “If this isn't working out, find another musician that's got talent, just keep moving.” Because I had that problem: I didn't have my second guy. John had his Paul and Mick had his Keith and Bono had his Edge, and that didn't happen to me, there was nobody else writing. And so when I saw jazz and the fluidity of Miles Davis, I thought, what's wrong with that? If there's nobody else writing, then bring other people in as the thing evolves. One of my great musical memories and moments was being at the Grammy Awards in, I think it was 1987, and I was talking to a very pretty girl backstage, and Miles Davis walked by, and I just froze because I was so thrilled to be in the space of my great hero. Then he stopped, and turned round, and came up to me and went [an excellent impression of Davis's hissing rasp] “Simply Red, right?” And I nodded in silence. You know, I'd been on the dole for four years, I'd just become famous in a matter of months, and there I am at the Grammys and Miles Davis knows who I am. He said, “I love that album, Picture Book, man!” And then just strolled off to the toilets. I was left completely stunned. You know, that, one, he even knew who was – and that he liked my album. It was an incredible thrill. I've never forgotten it."

"I think of all these three artists - Bolan, Bowie and Iggy - together and what I said about ‘The Jean Genie’ is all in there on the cover of Raw Power. Again, it’s illicit, threatening and very alluring to a certain kind of teenager looking for excitement, and in my case that was always through music and music culture. “I got Raw Power when I was fourteen because it was referred to me by Billy Duffy from The Cult, who would have been all of sixteen at the time. It was at a time when I was starting to recognise I had my own thing as a guitar player that my mates didn’t have, I’m not saying it was better, I just knew I was developing my own style. “Billy heard me playing a riff I was writing and said ‘That’s ‘Gimme Danger’ right?’ I said I’d never heard of ‘Gimme Danger and Billy said ‘That sounds like James Williamson.’ So I immediately had my back up, I was ‘Who’s this James Williamson kid? This is my new song, what are you talking about?’ But I knew Billy knew his stuff and that I really had to seek this record out, because Billy was sure that’s what I was playing and it was my new song. “I went into Virgin Records that weekend and I was stunned by the cover. It was Iggy bare-chested, looking like an iguana or a lizard and it was onstage as well, it was something that was really happening, not some photoshoot. I bought the LP for about £2.30, got it home and played ‘Search and Destroy.’ I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing, the sound of the vocal and this distorted band and when it got to ‘Gimme Danger’ it was really mysterious, dark and moody. “I couldn’t believe it was exactly the same, the intro sounded exactly like what I was trying to do and what I was quite close to. That could have been really dispiriting or disheartening, but it had the opposite effect - it was really galvanising. There was a lot of Prog at the time but with this there weren’t these silly organ solos, it was just ‘done.’ I didn’t need it to go on for eight minutes, it was really hip and it shone a light for me. I’ve always used this album as a yardstick. “‘Gimme Danger’ was uncanny, it was the way I was starting to play the guitar and if you listen to the start I think it sounds like what people think I sound like. I’ve met James Williamson and he knows all about this thing that happened to me and it was great to be able to tell him, he was very surprised, pleased and gracious about it and that made a massive difference. I’ve been very fortunate to have that happen to me a couple of times, where people have talked about a riff I’ve done and how they tried to work it out. So I know what it means and it’s amazing, I don’t mean that to sound immodest, it’s just an amazing thing."