Selsey date for Kiki Dee & Carmelo Luggeri - how to get your tickets

They will perform at The Academy, Selsey on August 27, bar opens 6.45pm for 7.30pm – all part of a return to gigging at the pace Kiki enjoys and possibly prior to a trip to the States.

“We started up gigs again last September, but really the pandemic wasn't too bad for us. We've got our own rehearsal room and studio and we live in the same village. And just before the first lockdown we had written a bunch of songs that we wanted to make a new album with which came out this year. So really I'm not complaining, put it that way. You had to be grateful when you were living in a nice place and you step outside into the countryside. A lot of people had it far, far worse than we did. I think if I'd been 20 to 25 years younger, it would have worried me more but I think as you get older and wiser it's just nice to work at your own pace. To do two shows a week is great actually, and I do think you forget some of the disappointments of all the things that you had to cancel.”

The point is that Kiki is pretty grounded and always has been: “I'm not trying to be a pop star. I'm a working singer who writes songs and I think it is so nice that I can have a normal life as well, just dipping into being Kiki. The rest of the time I am Pauline Matthews. There used to be a big difference between the two though I'm not so sure there is now!

“But there is a sense of freedom now. A lot of the time when you start out, it feels that you're having to make compromises and work with other people. I love the fact that I can now just play the music that I want and just work at my own pace.”

Not that she wasn't doing what she wanted to do when she first started out: “It's just that really I didn't have a clue. I was 16 when I got signed which was the equivalent of 13 now. When I arrived in London it was 1963 and there were The Beatles on the radio and seeing The Stones and thinking their hair was so long which of course it wasn't particularly. But there was a great sense of an incredible adventure. Rock ‘n’ roll started in 1955 and I heard the American singers on the radiogram at home and prior to that there was the jazz and blues era. Nothing is totally original. But I went to audition. I went down with my dad and I got the part, so to speak. The funny thing is when you are young, you think that you've got no time but what I think helped was the fact that I didn't make it for ten years. I was a working singer, doing backing vocals for artists like Dusty; and I think it also helped that I came from what you would call a stable family home and background.

“It wasn't until 1973 that I made it. Working with Elton changed everything in the sense of success. My first couple of albums weren't really heralded until ten years later and then I had a hit with Amoureuse and that was really the beginning. It's so exciting. Elton got me to write songs and to hear his band playing them was great.”

Then came monster success with Don't Go Breaking My Heart – and the video which is still so much fun to watch all these years later: “The reason we did the video was because Elton was so busy. He was travelling the world and we needed something in case we charted and needed something to show. We were in the studio and we took about 20 minutes to do it. We did a couple of takes and I think that's what makes it so sweet. We were not trying to be anything. It was just a couple of people mucking about in a fun way. And it is interesting to see something that you weren't necessarily so attached to having such longevity. It wasn't even going to be a duet at first. I was going to be doing the backing vocals and then I think it was Elton’s producer that suggested it should be be a proper duet between the two of us.” www.selseyfolkandmusicclub.co.uk.