I went to Morocco, joined a band called Pegasus, ran out of money, went to Gibraltar and worked on the docks, writing songs about the sun and the morning and the birds.

I started to work up in my old bedroom, playing, writing songs, and it somehow came to me that I could introduce soul music. Nobody seemed to be doing that.

Mostly I've never let record companies become involved with my music, which was a very smart thing that my first manager Dave Robinson did, to keep them out of it.

When the mighty chains of darkness had me on the ropes, everyone said quit now, that's when I found hope.

Sadly, my socks are like snowflakes, no two are exactly alike.

My dad isn't sure how I make a living because I'm not in the newspapers or on music shows any more. The world is bigger than England, however, but for the large part, yes, people don't know who I am. What are you gonna do? Unless you're a superstar act that attracts young people because it might be their last chance to see you before you die, then it's fairly typical. I'm astonished that I have any audience at all, to be honest.

In the early days, I had very little idea about arrangements, and I wrote songs a little flat, as it were, just on an acoustic guitar. They didn't really have quite enough nuance.