‘I jammed with Ringo and George Harrison’
comedian/actor Dudley Moore. “I was dating Ringo and ended up jamming between midnight and 3am with him, George Harrison and a bass player. I was on the piano,” she recalls.
“For a girl new to the industry, it was somewhat astonishing as I had bought the Beatles’ records when in school.”
Apart from that, she stays shtum on the subject of relationships, explaining that she’d rather not rake over old personal ground.
She is more open about her career setbacks. By the late-’70s, litigation with her then manager — the notorious Don Arden, father of Sharon Osbourne, who the singer recalls as “a complete crook” — restricted her performances.
After a quiet decade, she became a household name again in the ’90s when, despite her tiny frame, she released a self-defence video for women. “Every time I opened the papers there was another woman murdered, missing or raped,” she says. “I was so outraged, I thought somebody should do something about it. So I trained for a year in jiu jitsu. I got a Royal Society TV award and letters from women saying what a difference I had made.”
Her martial arts prowess would have been useful had she come face to face with the man who sent her a death threat and the stalker she had for a while. It certainly came in handy when she had an intruder in her house. “I came haring down the stairs like a little Yorkshire terrier shouting all sorts of politically incorrect phrases,” she remembers. “He reached behind him and I thought: ‘Oh, God, he’s getting a knife.’ But he actually opened the door and ran off!”
De Paul is today a director of the Performing Rights Society, which collects royalties for musicians. She has also been raising money for independent movies — one about Elvis Presley, another about Israeli military pilots.
Patron of the arts and kung fu queen. Talk about unexpected career moves. “People do branch out,” she asserts. Although It might be part of her past, she is delighted that her music has found a new audience. “I’ve had some fantastic reviews,” she says, quite taken aback. Then she remembers why she left the music business behind.
“Sitting down at a piano and performing repetitively is not something I wanted to do. I hate to be pigeon-holed,” she decides. “I like renaissance people with a broad brush of talents and initiatives.” Sugar And Beyond: Anthology 1972-74 and Into My Music: Anthology 1975-79 are out on Cherry Red