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I have been long associated with British music. I have favoured it as my alternate music next to American.

I didn't like any British music before The Beatles. For me, it was all about black American music. But then I became a successful pop singer, even though the kind of music I liked was more elitist, which is what I'm trying to get back to.

So many of the bands that influenced me growing up were English, even if I didn't realise it. English pop ruled the world in the '80s!

There's a focus that hasn't been there for ages and ages and some American bands are sounding quite English like they did in the late 70s and early 80s.

What is American music? The most satisfying answer I've come across is that it was a kind of natural comfort with the vernacular which is diverse and regional; it's not one particular set of sounds.

Growing up, I never listened to English music. I was more into Motown, as well as early rock n' roll like Chuck Berry and Little Richard.

I suppose, counting back, if the Beatles had been influenced by music in the same length of time ago - you'd have to put that into better English for me, thank you - they would have been like a banjo orchestra. They would have been doing show tunes.

I don't think there is much American music.

It's funny because if you ever ask anyone in England to try and do a Beatles accent, no one knows what they really sound like. If you ask anyone in America, they would try and give it a go. English people just know their songs.

England in the '60s and the '70s was everything that history has said; it was phenomenally exciting, musically.