Simon Ashberry talks to Bradford's Kiki Dee about her new

album and tour aimed at putting her back in the musical spotlight

Kiki Dee admits she's in danger of falling between two stools.

At this stage in her career she's neither cutting edge enough to be trendy nor bland enough to be middle of the road.

"We're getting a good response but we don't fit into Des O'Connor or Jools Holland," said Bradford-born Kiki.

She is about to release her latest album, a collaboration with acoustic guitarist Carmelo Luggeri called Where Rivers Meet.

The pair even thought about ditching the Kiki Dee identity and thinking up a band name in a bid to carve out a new niche in the market, but eventually dismissed the idea.

"We've discussed it endlessly. There was a point when it just sounded like I was trying to do a pop album. It's kind of like a rejection of your past. You don't want to offend all the people who have supported you," said Kiki.

"You get to the point where if you're still pandering to other people, it's pretty sad.

"We decided that the most mature way of doing it was if we both put our names on there and go through the grind of going out there in the world and touring."

Since her last release, the 1996 album Almost Naked, Kiki has passed the milestone of her 50th birthday.

But although she is resigned to being largely marginalised by the mainstream of the music industry, she is still enthusiastic about her album.

"I just got a fax from Annie Lennox that said she liked it. I knew Dave Stewart quite well. I've always respected her and it's always nice for someone like her to appreciate what you're doing. She's not the type of person to say it was great if she didn't like it," said Kiki.

Almost Naked, when Kiki posed naked for the controversial cover photograph, represented something of a new direction which has continued with Where Rivers Meet.

"When we did the Almost Naked album it was the beginning of me finding my musical direction," said Kiki.

"It came out of the spirit of experimentation. We did some demos of material that we had written. We had got some musicians in but it just sounded like everything else. There are so many good singer-songwriters out there like Joni Mitchell and Sheryl Crow.

"We felt that for Kiki Dee to start making any headway in her musical direction I needed to start doing something a little bit more radical. That's why I did the cover of the last album."

The most striking aspect of Where Rivers Meet is the use of Eastern sounds, with Kiki and Carmelo recruiting a group of Asian musicians playing instruments including the Indian tampura and tabla.

"We had actually been doing a yoga course and a positive thinking course and then we went to see Ravi Shankar and it was pretty amazing," said Kiki.

"On tour we will have a keyboard player and a tabla player. I will be playing second keyboard, which I've been learning. It's very difficult but I'm trying.

"The eastern side of it is interesting. The songs are western songs although I wanted to get a bit more expression into my vocals.

"We wanted to get the atmosphere of the spiritual side of things and it seemed to suit the songs we had written. It seemed to give them a certain originality."

It might seem apt to an outsider that Kiki should be drawing on eastern influences, having been born in a city which is steeped in Asian culture. But she is adamant that it is merely a coincidence.

"It looks like it has come full circle but it wasn't really my idea how it came out anyway," she said.

Spotted as a teenager while working in her native Bradford as a shop assistant for Boots the chemist, Kiki became the first white British artist to be signed up by the famous Motown record label

Her career since then has whisked her all around the world, peaking with the chart-topping success of Don't Go Breaking My Heart, her 1976 duet with Elton John. But Kiki is still proud of her Bradford roots, even though she has not lived in the North for years.

"I've been in London forever now. I'm a bit of a Londonised person really," said Kiki.

"In the past two or three years I have actually thought about moving back up North. I left when I was so young. I've made so many friends here now.

"I was on that thing of going out into the world and that whole thing of when you're in your teens. I loved the idea of leaving home and going off."

l Where Rivers Meet is released on Monday and Kiki and Carmelo are on the road in October and November. They will play the City Varieties in Leeds on October 11 as part of the tour. Tickets are £9, or £8 for students, and available by ringing (0113) 2430808.

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