CHELTENHAM TOWN HALL - 3 February 2004
'Gloucester Citizen'
'VARIETY PROVES SPICE OF LIFE'
A highly-acclaimed vocalist and actress who received an OBE in 2002 for services to music and drama, Barbara Dickson's first performances were a rather low-key affair singing alongside the likes of Archie Fisher and Jack Beck on the Sixties Scottish folk scene. Her first two albums, while critically acclaimed, were unsuccessful commercially and fame only came to the Scottish chanteuse on moving to the North of England in 1974 when she was offered a lead role in the hit Beatles musical John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert.
Mainstream success soon followed with such hits as Answer Me, January, February and Another Suitcase in Another Hall and by 1985 Dickson was celebrating her number one hit I know Him So Well by playing to a capacity Albert Hall.
Dickson's alliance with her folk roots was evident at the Town Hall in a set that included a cacophony of lilting Irish ballads accompanied by flute, banjo and strings.
And variety proved to be the spice as Dickson moved through a series of simple and pared-down arrangements of tunes penned by the likes of John Lennon and Bob Dylan, before bringing in a brass section to belt out big band numbers and an accordion to accompany some of her earlier hits.
This was a show with something for everyone, fronted by a multi-faceted performer who one minute smoulders as femme fatale Peggy Lee and the next gets guttural like Tom Waits.
She rounded it all off by returning to what she does best - supplying the dulcet and emotionally driven timbres of Seventies folk.
(Anna Saunders)
