When we were kids growing up in Liverpool, all we ever wanted to be was Elvis Presley.

You've been my inspiration, through the lies you were the truth. My world is a better place because of you.

I heard Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, and that was it. I didn't ever want to be anything else. I just started banging away and semi-studied classical music at the Royal Academy of Music but sort of half-heartedly.

I first heard Miles Davis as a student, when I was struck by his extraordinary musicianship, and his work did affect some of the sounds of Simply Red. He was one of the reasons I chose to have a muted trumpet on 'Holding Back the Years.'

The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I'm doin' now, man, for more years than I know. I got it from them.

It is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me.