A concerted effort to preserve our heritage is a vital link to our cultural educational aesthetic inspirational and economic legacies - all of the things that quite literally make us who we are.
I've done a lot of albums and I kinda know when I'm onto something that was inspirational for me to record and create and this was one of those projects where I really enjoyed making the album.
My tastes and inspirational artists were always rather eclectic and diverse.
This CD became something of a personal journey for me. The tone of the whole CD is uplifting and inspirational. It's an upper. We have enough downers in the world.
Deacon Jones has been the most inspirational person in my football career.
Every song you're trying to find something that going to connect in different ways but for me the songs that I'm really drawn to are inspirational songs that lift you and that everybody can relate to no matter where you're from.
I love a lot of the New York bands but Patti Smith stands out. I just read 'Just Kids' and it's an inspirational well-written account of an emerging New York artist in the late seventies.
I think the end goal hopefully is to take advantage of the attention I've gotten along the way and use it for good and build some communities and as I get older I can continue to do things and be surrounded by things that are inspirational to me.
Since we launched the original 'Pop Idol' in England I've remained close with Simon Fuller. Working as executive producer on 'American idol' for its first seven years not only was an inspirational journey into the heart of American pop culture it opened my eyes to the untapped potential of the incredibly dynamic young people in this world.
I grew up in a bookless house - my parents didn't read poetry so if I hadn't had the chance to experience it at school I'd never have experienced it. But I loved English and I was very lucky in that I had inspirational English teachers Miss Scriven and Mr. Walker and they liked us to learn poems by heart which I found I loved doing.