7. Anita O’DayPick Yourself Up With Anita O’Day

She’s this jazz singer who was really influenced by Billie Holiday and was, again, not perfect, but she was just the most natural, incredible, swinging, joyful singer. I’ve read her autobiography, which is amazing, and you just hear somebody you want to hang out and do naughty things with. She had this lust for life. She was on heroin, yet she lived to 80 and still managed to look amazing. There’s a famous clip of her singing at the Newport Jazz Festival and she’s obviously off her face… well, she’s not obviously off her face, she looks so elegant, but when you read about what she was actually on… oh my God. Those characters are just insane – she had such incredible stamina, I think probably because she was a dancer, she did the lindy hop. I guess it’s hard to be eccentric now because it just looks so affected, and everything you do is questioned. I’d hate to be a young artist having to share every inane thought I have on social media and have it questioned. That’s awful, because you don’t know anything. I had hits when I was very young, and I’m so glad that I was young then, not now, because when you’re a kid, however well-adjusted you are, you don’t know who you are, you don’t know what you’re talking about. It was daunting, but at the same time, you have a kind of arrogance when you’re young that protects you.