I’m desperate for people to hear my new songs
Barbara Dickson tells MARION McMULLEN why she is passionate about finally performing live again
IT has taken a long time for Barbara Dickson to perform her newest songs for audiences ... and she cannot wait.
“It’s like being emotionally constipated,” she explains. “I had written this new music and new songs and I’m desperate for people to hear them. This is the longest time I’ve not performed with the band. The last time we were all together was in 2019.”
The 74-year-old is now busy preparing for an extensive UK tour with her band and they will be performing both classic tracks and her more recent material.
“I’ve been busy rehearsing on my own, all the band have, until we get together before the new tour starts and sort everything out,” she explains. “The band members are in Suffolk, Yorkshire, London and Oxfordshire so it is the only way we can manage it and, God willing, I can’t wait for us to tour again. We’ve not seen each other in ages.
“I did some dates last October with my keyboard player Nick Holland and that was wonderful. I was quite moved. It was a real Herculean effort for some people to be there.
“There are so many frightened people out there because of the pandemic and it was lovely to see people and to say ‘It’s alright, you’re safe with us and we’re going to have a lovely time.’
“There are definitely concerts I plan to go to this year ... and nothing is going to stop me.”
Barbara released her album Time Is Going Faster in 2020 and it marked 50 years since the release of her first solo album Do Right Woman.
The new album features 10 new tracks and three original songs written by Barbara herself – her first new writing in years – including the title track, Goodnight, I’m Going Home, and Where Shadows Meet The Light. The album also includes a new rendition of Tell Me It’s Not True from Willy Russell’s hit musical Blood Brothers.
Now she is looking forward to performing live again and singing in some of her favourite concert halls. “You step out of a wooden door and walk across the stage and the audience can see you the moment you step out of that door. It’s not like a theatre were you step out of the wings. One moment you are standing in a tiny staircase and the next you are with people, a lot of people, and you are off.
“It does not matter if you love classical music, pop or folk; it is an emotional sound and we have missed that. It was taken from us. “Some people might never come back to concerts, they are afraid to come back in case they get Covid, but we are looking at ways of doing meet and greets that are Covid safe. I’ve always done them at the end of concerts and they are important to me.”
The multi-million selling recording artist with an equally impressive Olivier Award-winning acting career, emerged from the Scottish Folk Revival of the 1960s and became the biggest selling Scottish female album artist of all time, earning six platinum, 11 gold and seven silver albums.
Barbara was known to a wider audience in the 1970s and 1980s with hits including Answer Me, Another Suitcase in Another Hall, The Caravan Song and I Know Him So Well with Elaine Paige from the musical Chess by Abba’s Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus and Tim Rice.
As an actress, she has appeared in the award-winning theatre productions, John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert, Spend, Spend, Spend and was the original Mrs Johnstone in Blood Brothers and writer Willy Russell’s muse.
She was awarded an OBE in 2002 for services to music and drama and appeared in the BBC’s Real Marigold Hotel in 2020.
Barbara, who has three sons
This is the longest time I have not performed with the band
Colm, Gabriel and Archie, lives in Edinburgh with her husband, Oliver and took up running for the first time during lockdowns. “I couldn’t go to the gym because it was closed so my husband and I just started doing a little bit of running. Not major, I’ve never been a runner, but I now do 3k every day and it’s just been nice to get out in the fresh air. We’re planning to do a run for motor neurone disease for Scottish rugby player Doddie Weir who has disease and we are hoping to raise money for research.” Barbara has also brought out an updated and expanded version of her autobiography A Shirt Box Full Of Songs and released her own podcast Answer Me Ten which saw her speaking to singers like Toyah Willcox, Kiki Dee and Beverley Craven. “There’s been a lot of creativity,” says Barbara, “even if people have not been able to earn a living they have been able to do something with their time.
“I wrote songs and brought out the album and I really, really hope that people like what I have been doing. With the tour, I’m back in the saddle.”
Barbara is at Princess of Wales Theatre, Cannock, on March 17 and Town Hall, Birmingham, on April 3.