Article from the Glasgow Evening Times newspaper from 29th January 2007.
BARBARA GETS BY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM HER FRIENDS
Barbara tells Ken McNab about her new album of Beatles covers and explains why she'll never stop singing.
The voice on the other end of the phone is velvet warm and honey sweet. And the throaty chuckle buzzes with a hearty and breezy charm.
Barbara Dickson is in a happy place - and no wonder. Her first album in a few years - a radical reworking of Beatles songs with a subtle Celtic vibe - has garnered career-high plaudits.
Next month she sets off on a 30 date UK tour that will reacquaint her with, among other places, Glasgow's King's Theatre.
And, peering further into her own crystal ball, she's longing for the chance to strut her stuff on stage at T In The Park.
"I would love to do that. I think I've a lot to offer. I haven't been invited but I'm certainly up for it, " she says.
Not bad for a woman of substance with three teenage boys who retains the same wide-eyed enthusiasm for singing and performing as she did when she first started out - whisper it - 40 years ago. And at 59 - and looking easily 20 years younger - she has no intention of shifting into a slower gear.
She said: "When people say to me what is the highlight of your career, I say I don't know. It hasn't hap"pened yet. And I mean that.
"And I will keep on doing this work until I fall over. It sounds incredibly boring in these days of X Factor but this is a vocation for me.
"If I made no money, I would still be singing. I was born with this ability to express myself in this way. And it makes me happy to do it. It feeds my soul."
That ability carried her from her home town of Dunfermline to London's West End - where she starred in Willy Russell's acclaimed John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert - to pop stardom and numerous acting high spots, notably the gritty ITV drama Band Of Gold.
She got to number one with Elaine Paige in 1985 with their great version of I Know Him So Well. She was also awarded an OBE in 2002.
Barbara's acting stock also rose when she toured the country in the stage production of Spend Spend Spend, chronicling the life of Sixties pools winner Viv Nicholson. Singing, though, will always be her first love. And her latest adventure is a magical history tour behind the songs - and the band - that erupted like a sunburst on her teenage years.
The album, Nothing's Gonna Change My World, sees Barbara put her own stamp on some classic Beatles songs.
Rather than playing safe, though, she has steered clear of the usual Fab Four suspects.
Instead, tunes such as Rain, I Will, Across The Universe and I'll Be Back are given maverick new treatments. The result is one of the best Beatles cover albums in years.
Barbara admits the choice of songs was key.
She laughed: "What people are saying about the choice of songs is very interesting. I wanted it to be a Barbara Dickson album, not a Beatles album. I had to choose songs that would either be a story, such as Fool On The Hill or Eleanor Rigby, or have a deep tenderness as I Will does and Things We Said Today.
"We chose the songs that would "really be good reworked by us. I have enough songs for another volume of this work.
I am very happy with the album. And I am able to take the songs from the album and slot them into my show. And make them sound like they belong there."
Recording the songs also allowed Barbara to recall the days when, as a teenager in 1963, she saw The Beatles in concert in Kirkcaldy.
"All I can remember is this wallto-wall screaming, " she admitted. "But I've always loved The Beatles."
