As leader of rock band The Police, and as a multiple-Grammy winning solo artist, Sting has sold more than 100 million albums worldwide over his four-decade career.
In conversation with John Wilson, Sting explores some of the people and places that helped shape his creativity.
He recalls his working class upbringing in the Tyneside shipbuilding communities, and how hearing The Beatles inspired his musical ambitions as a child.
Sting explains why, at the height of their international success, he split The Police in the mid-1980s.
He also reveals how Miles Davis and other jazz musicians, and classical composers including Bach and Prokofiev, inspired his new musical direction as a solo artist.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Reversioned for the BBC World Service in 2023 from the original broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2021.