I can actually still smell the vinyl of this that my mum had. You know when the sleeve starts to go a little bit brown? She also had Innervisions, but Songs In The Key Of Life was the one that stayed with me. As a kid growing up in the north west of England in the 80s, America was so exciting and mysterious, and what I loved about this album was how it opened up this whole world to me. Obviously Stevie Wonder is such an incredible songwriter, very much like The Beatles in terms of his ability to express this visual picture of an environment, but I think “Sir Duke” is one of my favourite songs of all time. It’s such a musical education. I just loved learning about who Duke Ellington is and all these different people he’s talking about.
I met Stevie Wonder with the girls once – God, I’m such a name dropper! – when we were performing with Pavarotti, I think it was in 1997. He had a children’s charity that he did these big concerts for, and Stevie was playing as well. We went to his dressing room to meet him and there’s a picture of it and it’s so funny. Geri wasn’t with us at the time, but Victoria and Mel are like all smiles and me and Emma – who grew up listening to him as well – are just like… gobsmacked. We went on stage for the big finale and he was jamming and going “Spice Girls! Spice Girls!” and I was like it doesn’t get any better than this’. My life is ridiculous.
