SOUND AND VISION PRESENTER’S FAVOURITE THINGS

Is a blessing in lockdown, tears at the ballet and a few of his favourite things

Billie Holliday,

above in 1948.

An extraordinarily brilliant talent.

I’ve just watched Ozark. I was intrigued, I watched it all, not liking any of the characters. But I think The Wire is the best box set. I was up until 3 o’clock in the morning watching it.

Little Feat. There was something about that southern boogie, Lowell George’s guitar, the coolness. I still absolutely adore them. Graeme Kelling (Deacon Blue’s original guitar player, who died in 2004) introduced me to them and I got right into it. Richie Heyward, their drummer, was so cool. He looked really odd when he played, but what a groover.

Rickie Lee Jones’ Girl at Her Volcano. There’s a great version of My Funny Valentine on it, the best version ever. It makes me greet! And there’s a beautiful version of Rainbow Sleeves, which was written by Tom Waits.

Paris, Texas – the scene between Harry Dean Stanton and Nastassja Kinski, inset. It’s where she ends up becoming a prostitute, sitting behind a one-way mirror, and he’s at the other side, telling a story and she eventually realises it’s her husband at the other side of the glass. The camera is on her face the whole time, all filmed in one shot, she goes from being the ex-wife to the broken hearted. It’s an extraordinary scene. It was done before Sinead O’connor’s Nothing Compares 2U video, it’s like that times 100. So intense. Totally brilliant.

Edwin Morgan’s In The Snack Bar was a big moment for me, but On The Ning Nang Nong by Spike Milligan is the truth of it. I read Milligan’s Silly Verse For Kids when I was young, and I read it to my kids who loved them. It was a way into poetry, words, books.

Brooklyn Nine-nine. Andy Samberg is a very funny man. It works for me on many levels.

I used to go to the opera with my ex-wife, who’s an opera singer. But I went to see Matthew Bourne’e Swan Lake last year. It’s ballet, not theatre, but

I was howling, in tears. It was incredible, a theatre experience rather than a play, but I was broken in the end.

There should be no guilt about a pop pleasure. Pop is great. With no guilt whatsoever, I’ll say Beyonce.

That changes for me every half-hour. I revel in the genius of people all the time, but it’s David Bowie at this moment in time. An amazing singer, an incredible musician and always raised an eyebrow, he wasn’t prepared to do normal. Not everything he did was brilliant, but it was edgy and had balls. When that last record came out, nobody knew he was dying, and I remember watching the video to Black Star, being completely blown away by it. I was so impressed by the risk he was taking, pushing boundaries, even at that stage in his career.

It’s a Gary Clark lyric, from a King Earl album, off the record A Great Day For Gravity. It’s the song Two Cars Collide, in the second verse: “Waiting for an hour under Samuels’ clock, frozen to the bone in a summer frock, it’s the first time that he’d let her down, it’s the last time he can.” I fill up every time. And the way Gary sings it breaks your heart.

I’ve spent a lot of time in Paris, and the Musee d’orsay is an amazing place, like being in an ornate film set except all the paintings and figures are real. But ultimately, it’s Kelvingrove in Glasgow. I’d go because it was raining and then wondered what I’d ever been doing outside. It’s full of treasures and wonders. I used to do orchestral concerts in the room under the organ pipes years ago. Classical music reverberates beautifully there.

Between Danny Wilson at the London School of Economics and Bruce Springsteen’s Tunnel Of Love tour at Sheffield’s Bramall Lane, both in the 1980s. As a performer, it was either playing The Bottom Line, a tiny venue in New York with Rod Stewart watching, or The Big Day in Glasgow in 1990 when we headlined, ending with Dignity under fireworks in front of a huge audience.

Jack Nicholson, who has made a career of playing parts of himself in every movie.

Richard Harris, Madonna, Dave Grohl from Nirvana and Foo Fighters and Sheena Easton. They’d all really annoy each other before long and I’d love to watch it happen.