1. Nina SimoneMy Baby Cares For Me

I know it’s just a 10" single technically, but it’s important because it’s my first one. The first record I really bought and really loved. It had ‘I Loves You Porgy’ on it and ‘Love Me Or Leave Me’, which I can sing word for word, including the piano solo. Nina is one of my original sources. I got this from a friend of mine, he’d gotten it off the back of a lorry and he was selling them out of a crate in Brixton Market. There was a place called Red Records and I used to go there every Saturday afternoon. That was my hangout. And so the guy there took a shine to me, I would just sit on a stool and he would play me records because he saw I was a music fan. I was ten-years-old, sitting there, being played some records by some old guy. Well to me he was old, he was probably 20. He was my first educator. You know, I hung out with Nina Simone in South Africa and that was amazing. She was in a wheelchair, but full of life, drank, telling story after story. And when it’s the first record you bought and she’s there; she was a bit mad, very radical, a stunningly interesting person. I’ve met a lot people but didn’t get to hang out with them the whole night. I saw her perform as well, near the end; still great, mad as a hatter, but still great.