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Barbara Dickson



Last Updated: 11/16/2009

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Status: Single
Country: UK
Signup Date: 2/8/2007

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Sunday, August 09, 2009 
Hello everyone,

I hope you're all having a good summer, despite the weather. It seems to have rained since June!

However, I'm enjoying myself, especially as I've had all the family at home - a mother's dream - and having just done both the Eisteddfod and Brampton Live, which was the biggest Folk Festival the band and I have appeared at so far.

I'd love to do more of that kind of work. It's really stimulating and I just float on the confidence of knowing how good the music is while we're playing. It's so great to have Brad, Russ, Nick, Troy and Pete with me as well, the 'big' band I use on my touring dates, although sometimes we have to appear as a foursome and not the usual six.

I love doing these Festivals in the summer. Everyone is so lovely and I get to meet other artistes - it's something that I don't get to do usually as I'm the only artist there. I also get to hear OTHER artists and what they're up to. It's great.
I'd love to do some more next summer - maybe Cambridge and Glastonbury would be good!

Coming up soon there's the concert at Linlithgow, a small festival near Edinburgh, in September and then everything hots up for the launch of my autobiography. However, before that, I'm appearing in Dunfermline (not singing) for the Fife Constabulary Unsung Heroes evening at the Glen Pavilion as their special guest. Then I'm hoping to be all over the place late October and the first two weeks of November in particular signing books and doing interviews, and I'll be starting to do magazine interviews very soon. They have a long 'lead in' period, so they need to  be done well in advance.

I'm also doing two songs in a concert at the Queens Hall in Edinburgh on 30th October with Archie Fisher, my old friend and a great influence on my early work. We're both patrons of the Traditional Music and Song Association of Scotland and so we're getting together to play a brief little set for them to raise funds. Do come if you can, to make the event successful for Scottish culture.

Also for the TMSA, I'm appearing in Dumfries on the 28th November to lead the singing of 'Auld Lang Syne'... the OLD tune is being used. I've also asked if I can sing a song and Troy is coming with me for that.

Then Troy and I will be contributing to a Royal Carol Concert at Glasgow Cathedral on 10th December in the presence of HRH Princess Alexandra. That should be great as my old friend Lady Edmonstone is organising it.

So look out for me as I'll be all over the place between now and Christmas. Please come to a book signing if there is one is near you - just to make me feel less lonely! There'll be more details on next year's tour in a short while. Individual dates will be up on the website very soon (love the new look to the site by the way, it's wonderful!)

Lastly, Troy and I are talking about the new album we are hoping to make in 2010. The project we were considering, which involved cover versions, didn't materialise in the end. I'm not too unhappy about that. I'm calling the next album 'Full Circle 3', which gives you the gist of what it will be. More on that as it evolves but nothing is certain yet. I'm just letting you in on my thoughts about the future.

There are loads of strange compilations around at the moment which have nothing to do with me, so maybe I should leave the pop songs well alone for now and just get on with what I want to do. However, Troy and I are looking at putting a couple of new pieces in the 2010 tour set list from that aborted covers CD, but we've not decided which ones yet.

The completion of the BBC Scotland Christmas radio show I did, turning it into a full CD, won't happen this year as I'm very busy with the book and Troy is very busy with the Bad Shepherds, who are taking the festival circuit by storm and will be on tour in the Autumn.

Talking of Troy, I hope you've had a chance to hear his new 'The Madness of Crowds' CD. It's really beautiful - I didn't know I could sing that high, until he made me!

Watch out for Pete Zorn with Steeleye Span as well. He's maybe doing some UK dates with them later in the year and has already fulfilled a tour's worth in 2009.

Hope you all have a great late summer and Autumn. See you somewhere soon!

Much love,

BARBARA x
5:00 PM 
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Sunday, April 12, 2009 

Category: Music
Hi everyone,

I'm just beginning to feel normal again after the tour which finished, as many of you know, on 18th March in Glasgow. It's been years since I played in the Royal Concert Hall there and my return was unforgettable, especially as it was the final date. What a night!

I have just been looking through the site's guestbook - thank you all so much for all your positive comments, they really are appreciated. I also had a look at the recent fan survey, which I didn't even know was on there - fascinating!

I was talking to Liz, my tour manager, about  mixed feelings at the end of a concert tour. On the one hand, we all feel rather smug at having got through all the dates unscathed but on the other, rather sad that the rhythm required, both off stage and on, grinds to a halt. It's like falling off the end!

It takes me about 2 weeks to feel that I can get on with anything and to recharge my batteries. I can never credit how tired I am yet feeling great with the satisfaction of the job completed.

Having said all that, I truly believe that the 2009 concert tour is the best I have ever done. I genuinely loved every moment on stage, with that great band and an audience wherever we played who really understood what we were doing and went every step with us.

The new material which we did we hope to record during this year with a view to release as a CD in the future. However, as I write, I have no news on that. It's just my intention at this stage and Troy is standing by to work with me (between shows with The Bad Shepherds and Nightwish.)

The live stuff we do now is really stimulating for me musically. It's what I always wanted to do. When I wanted to play bigger dates, while I was a folk singer, this is what I wanted to do - be intimate with the crowd, share with them and have a great time with them, not 'at' them. Play my guitar and the piano and be in the same entirely musical world of great songs, regardless of origin, that we all share.

Thanks for coming to see us. Thanks for supporting us. I know I speak for all of the band when I say that it's not the same without you! You make the night.

I also appreciate that in these more straighened times, that you are able to show us that the 2009 tour is the highlight so far by coming to see us play and encouraging us to be bolder and better.

When 2010 dawns, God willing, I'll be able to take it on a little further with, as the song says, a little help from my friends!

Happy Easter

Love,

Barbara x
7:18 PM 
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Sunday, January 25, 2009 

Current mood:  excited
The past two weeks have been pretty tiring. I've been working on my own, playing guitar and piano, learning new songs for the tour, new chords, new words and walking around wearing my stage shoes to break them in. No, I'm not at home wearing my whole stage outfit, lol, only the shoes in case I get vertigo on the first night - they're four and a half inch heels!

I'm about to meet up with the band and then I'm off to Lancaster for the first night. By then, hopefully, all will be in the 'lizard brain' as Pete Zorn calls it. That's the instinctive bit which recalls information as a reflex action. Let's hope it works...

I'm so excited about seeing everyone again, both the band and crew and also seeing all of you once more. It's going to be a busy year.

After the tour I've got to get back to the book and also start planning the new album with Troy. Currently the schedule for that is late May and June after Troy returns from his Nightwish concerts. Speaking of Troy, he has his own new album out called 'The Madness of Crowds'. I've made a small contribution on vocals - it's a huge privilege and it's a masterful work (the album that is, not my vocals!!) You'll see in it where the influences come from which made 'Full Circle' and 'Time and Tide' so beautiful. Coincidentally, my sculptor brother Alastair, of whom Troy is a big fan, has contributed the art for the cover picture.

Anyway, back to the tour... I've been running on a machine, 25 minutes, three times a week, to get my fitness levels up. I'm going to need it! My husband always says to me, and I think he's right, that this time of year is a good time to be busy. With the weather so bad and the dark nights, if you've got something good to do, you don't notice the winter speeding past. Roll on those snowdrops is what I say!

So, I've sorted out the family, made sure the tickets for the guests are fixed up and I'm about to get in the car and go. I've just got a new Golf GTI so if you see a woman in the papers handcuffed and off to the cells for speeding on the motorway in Yorkshire, it's me! Ha ha!

See you all in the next few weeks!

Love,

BARBARA x
1:31 PM 
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Tuesday, December 02, 2008 

Current mood:  busy

Hi everyone,

I'm so sorry to have been 'silent' for such a long time, but I've been really busy with family stuff. I've also been away on holiday and I've just finished making the BBC Christmas radio show with Rab Noakes and Troy Donockley.

At the moment I'm busy putting together a set list for the tour and am looking at material for the new CD in 2009.


What else? I'm currently doing publicity for the tour and working on the tourbook with Tim (Martindale), who's just great, and generally battening down the hatches for the next month. My brother is about to arrive from Canada for 10 days and I'm spending time next week with John Abernethy who's helping me with the autobiography... we've got 30,000 words and we need 90,000!!! Good grief... anyway, I'm asking friends to jog my memory (some of it's a bit hazy - well, it WAS the '60s!!) I'm ploughing through photographs as well with John. I'm determined that this book will be a real story and not a manicured airbrushed affair. Boring, boring, boring!!

 I read a great book by a man called Robert Douglas, who attended a writers group in East Anglia and decided to write down his recollections of a wartime childhood in Glasgow. It was so good. Real and funny and sad.....I'm inspired!


Hope you're all well. If I don't get the chance to write before I hope you all have a wonderful and peaceful Christmas and New Year!

Lots of love,

BARBARA x

8:46 AM 
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Wednesday, April 18, 2007 

Category: Music
Hi all,

Thanks for all the support so far this year. It's a strange feeling, in a way, having completed your main 'live' dates by early March, but it's been wonderful and full of good memories. Many, many highlights to remember.

Kennedy Street, who book my tours, say that they think it's a good idea for me to tour in the earliest part of the year, because no one else is out there! It's also a good way to pass the worst of the winter months, as I'm too busy to notice the weather!

I'm planning to do some things, in no particular order. As well as the 'spiritual' CD and the second volume of 'Full Circle' I've already mentioned I have a couple of one-off dates in the summer already and I need to make a DVD at some point, but I may join that up to the next tour, which will probably be in early 2008. Check back for updates on all these as we go through the year. It's a good time - I'm optimistic that 2007 is going to be a great year and filled with new ideas.

It was such a treat to see you all on the concert tour. Thank you for being so loyal to me and the band. When we all parted company at the Lyric in London, there were a few tearful eyes, such was the bond between us all on the tour.

We'll be back very soon after a rest. Have a happy and successful, healthy remainder of the year!!

Love

BARBARA x 
9:13 PM 
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Thursday, March 29, 2007 
Well, here I am, 2 weeks after the tour finished in London, and I'm just coming up for air...I thought I had just got off a flight from New Zealand when we got back home!
 I had to do a trip to Liverpool to do a masterclass at LIPA on the Friday of my first week 'off'....a bit blitzed but OK.
 
I've just been putting together some stuff for the first of the 2 new albums Troy and I want to work on. We've not really started yet, but we want to do a Full Circle 2 and another 'spiritual' CD with lots of Celtic stuff, poems and prayers and devotional things we like. This is a parallel project and we may do both in tandem, but I don't know exactly yet. 'Lowlands of Holland', which we previewed on the tour will be on Full Circle 2.

All's well - we had a fantastic tour and thanks to all my friends and followers who supported us. I love working with Russell Field, Troy Donockley, Pete Zorn, Brad Land and Nick Holland. They are just first class people and top rate musicians. I'm going to talk to Kennedy Street soon to put together the dates for 2008!!! So look out.

Have a lovely Easter when it comes. Happy days - Spring is here and the days are longer. It's a hopeful season, Spring.
I'm looking forward to my friend Rachel Leskovac's baby, just about to be born, so that'll be something nice to look forward to, while thinking of ideas for the new projects!!
 
Catch you all soon!
 
B x
 
7:24 PM 
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Monday, February 19, 2007 

Current mood:  cheerful
Category: Music

Hello and welcome to my new MySpace page!

I'm enjoying the rigours of the road... we're now 15 dates into a 30 date tour and still enjoying playing, more every day.... getting lots of sleep, though hotel beds are not good for the rest!! I'm trying to eat sensibly and not after the show... I'm always tempted to snack! 

I'm reading my new book, 'Credo' by Melvyn Bragg. I just finished 'Notes on a Scandal', which I didn't really like much and I've got an ongoing Alison Weir on Mary Queen of Scots and the murder of Lord Darnley which I left behind last time...

Just managed to grab a day back home before we're off again tomorrow morning. Everything's fine and my family are all keeping well although I only managed one day with my boys at half term. Never mind... it'll soon be 11th March (and Spring!)

Catch you all soon,

Love, Barbara x

11:40 AM 
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