HOWZAT

As a child, I used to listen to Aretha’s music because my mom played Do Right Woman and Ain’t No Way every single day. I would see my mother cry when she listened to those songs, and I’d cry, too. Then I discovered her on my own with the Sparkle soundtrack. I must have played Giving Him Something He Can Feel 30 times in a row; eventually, I connected the dots to that voice my mom was listening to.

When you watch her work, you can see why Aretha is who she is. When we did the song Don’t Waste Your Time on my album Mary, she just went in there and ate that record like Pac-Man. She could be doing a church vocal run, and it would turn into some jazz-space thing; something I never encountered before. You’d say, “Where did that come from? Where did she find that note?” It’s beautiful to see, because it helps people with a lack of confidence in their ability, like myself. I look at her and think, “I need a piece of that. Whatever that is.”

2 RAY CHARLES by Billy Joel

Ray Charles had the most unique voice in popular music. He would do these improvisational things, a little laugh or a “Huh-hey!” It was as if something struck him as he was singing and he just had to react to it. He was getting a kick out of what he was doing. And his joy was infectious. Ray started out wanting to be Nat King Cole. When Nat went down low in a song, like Mona Lisa, there was a growl in there that was kind of sexy. Ray took that to a whole other level. He took the growl and turned it into singing. He took the yelp, the whoop, the grunt, the groan, and made them music.

Also, he was a piano player. The piano is a percussion instrument. You put your body into it. Ray had a lot of unique body movements I didn’t know until I saw him. Before I saw him, I heard those movements as he sang. I heard his shoulder go up a little on the left side, the way he lifted himself off the stool. Then I realised the voice I was hearing was also playing that piano.

The first Ray Charles I heard was Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music. He’d had hits before that, the R&B stuff, like What’d I Say. But here is a black man giving you the whitest possible music in the blackest possible way, while all hell is breaking loose with the civil rights movement. When he sang You Don’t Know Me, I thought, “He isn’t just singing the lyrics. He’s saying, ‘You don’t know me. Get to know me.’”

Ray synthesised the blues into a language everybody could relate to. You can’t listen to Ray Charles and not say, “This is a man who felt deeply, who has lived this music.” He shows you his humanity. The spontaneity is evident. Another guy might say, “That was a mistake, we can’t leave that in.” No, Ray left it in. The mistake became the hook.

3 ELVIS PRESLEY by Robert Plant

There is a difference between people who sing and those who take that voice to another, otherworldly place; who create a euphoria within themselves. It’s transfiguration. And having met Elvis, I know he was a transformer. The first Elvis song I heard was Hound Dog. I heard this voice and it was absolutely, totally in its own place. The voice was confident, insinuating and taking no prisoners. He had those great whoops and diving moments, those sustains that swoop down to the note like a bird of prey.

I met Elvis with Zeppelin, after one of his concerts in the early Seventies. He wasn’t quite as tall as me. But he had a singer’s build. He had a good chest – that resonator. And he was driven. Anyway You Want Me is one of the most moving vocal performances I’ve ever heard. There is no touching Jailhouse Rock and the stuff recorded at the King Creole sessions. I can study the Sun sessions as a middle-aged guy looking back at a bloke’s career and go, “Wow, what a great way to start.” But I liked the modernity of the RCA stuff. I Need Your Love Tonight and A Big Hunk o’ Love were so powerful – those sessions sounded like the greatest place to be on the planet.

At that meeting, Jimmy Page joked with Elvis that we never sound-checked, but if we did, all I wanted to do was sing Elvis songs. Elvis thought that was funny and asked me, “Which songs do you sing?” I told him I liked the ones with all the moods, like that great country song Love Me – “Treat me like a fool/ Treat me mean and cruel/ But love me.” So when we were leaving, after a most illuminating and funny 90 minutes with the guy, I was walking down the corridor. He swung round the door frame, looking quite pleased with himself, and started singing that song: “Treat me like a fool…” I turned around and did Elvis right back at him. We stood there, singing to each other.

By then, because of the forces around him, it was difficult for him to stretch out with more contemporary songwriters. When he died, he was 42. I’m 18 years older than that now. But he didn’t have many fresh liaisons to draw on – his old pals weren’t going to bring him the new gospel. I know he wanted to express more. But what he did was he made it possible for me, as a singer, to become otherworldly.

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