My Influences – Music
| Viscerally | |
| Little Richard | I was eleven years old when I first heard Little Richard. I’d already fallen in love with Buddy Holly but Little Richard blew me away and awakened some deep excitement in the core of my being the like of which I had not known existed. The energy he poured out poured into me and set my heart pounding. I’d discovered something so earthy and powerful that it awakened something inside of me and made me feel good – so very good. |
| Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry | That same energy that Little Richard produced was also released by both Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. Bo was more seminal and primitive and Chuck more visually enthralling but both homed in on that primordial creature that lived in my glands. They set the juices flowing and filled me with life. They brought me alive. That music rocked. |
| Beatles | I must have been fourteen when I first heard the Beatles. My friend Tony took me off to his room, put the needle down on his latest acquisition, turned the volume right up and hit me with She Was Just Seventeen. It hit me in the depths of my abdomen and sent blood roaring to my brain. I had never heard anything so exciting. Life would never be the same. |
| Rolling Stones | Later that same year I was hit with another body blow when I bought the Stones first album. It was every bit as good as the Beatles – rawer, rougher and bluesier. It was so rebellious and sultry, so low down dirty that it reeked of illicit sexuality and heat that it took everything up a notch for me. |