“I first saw a video by D’Angelo on MTV back when the channel still played some music – it wasn’t just running shows about teenage pregnancy and the cast of New Jersey. It was set in Philly, with D’Angelo at a Fender Rhodes piano playing the song Brown Sugar. It was totally tongue-in-cheek, his reference to these girls. But when you listened to it, you were like, ‘Wow, this is a modern-day Bill Withers thing.’

“I saw him a couple of years later on the concert they did after Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve. They would have the pop guys lip-syncing before the ball dropped, and then around 12:30 they’d cut to a soundstage where the real players were. D’Angelo came out and did his thing with a killer band – Eric Clapton and David Sanborn and all these amazing people. He sang a Bill Withers tune, and I was just hooked.

“Brown Sugar is fantastic, and so is another record he did called Voodoo. I like Brown Sugar better, though. He’s legitimate.”