Barbara is a tour de force (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Barbara is a tour de force

10:00am Friday 5th March 2010 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
•  

BARBARA Dickson began her illustrious career performing in the folk clubs around her native Fife in the 1960s. More than four decades on, she’s still on the live show circuit and showing no sign of tiring of touring.

Since her first album Answer Me, in 1976, she has released over two dozen albums, starred in musicals, acted in television shows and, in 2009, published her autobiography A Shirt Full of Songs.

Barbara – who will be performing at The Anvil in Basingstoke on March 12 – said: “My main work is live performance. I think for people like myself who are not in the charts, you tend not to go out and promote. You need to just go out and tour regularly.”

Musically, the Lincolnshire-based singer has spanned many genres throughout her career.

“I started out in Scotland in the 1960s,” she said. “Then for a good 10 years I was a pop singer. But after 1985 the concept of being a pop singer was a bit embarrassing, and getting older I thought I would do more mature, thoughtful material, but not necessarily more serious.

“So all the time I’m choosing new material and breaking new boundaries for myself. I don’t care what people think – I’m happy ploughing my own furrow creatively.”

Six years ago Dickson released Full Circle, which she describes as a return to her folk roots, and since then she has released Nothing’s Gonna Change My World, a folk treatment of Beatles songs. Her most recent studio album, Time and Tide, was released in 2008. Last year she also released Barbara Dickson In Concert, followed by a concert DVD.

But Dickson, who has balanced a busy career alongside a marriage and bringing up three now adult sons, also branched into musical theatre and acting in the 1980s.

She said: “Willy Russell had the idea that he wanted me to sing and be Mrs Johnstone in his musical [1982’s Blood Brothers]. It was a big move for me. There are not many singers who are any good at acting – Barbra Streisand is the main one I can think of.

“I love rehearsing, it’s fantastically creative, but I don’t like performing as much. It’s such a responsibility.”

She has also worked in television and added: “I don’t mind the idea of acting on TV, maybe a mad old granny part, but I’m not interested in being noticed for the sake of it.

“I can’t bear celebrity. I think it’s so phoney. I just can’t be that way. My idea of heaven would be where actors, musicians and writers just walk around like everyone else.”

At the moment, Dickson is working on a new studio album with songwriter Troy Donockley and filming a programme about Scottish songs and song-writers for BBC Scotland.

She said: “I’m looking forward to that. It will be with a lot of people I know.”

Tickets for the show, which starts at 7.45pm, cost £22.50 and are available from the box office, on 01256 844244, or online at anvil arts.org.uk.