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“Kiki Dee – Gold” is an unbelievably priced 3 disc retrospective of one of the UK’s great soul singers.

The first British female singer to sign with Motown Tamla Records, she was a backing vocalist for Dusty Springfield in the 60’s, before signing for Elton John’s Rocket Records label. Best known for her hits ‘Amoureuse’, ‘I’ve Got The Music In Me’ and ‘Don’t Go Breaking my Heart’ (with Elton John), a massive one million selling UK and US #1 single in 1976, she would enjoy further chart success with the singles ‘Chicago’ and ‘First Thing in the Morning.’

‘Gold’ brings together, for the first time, all her hits and choice album cuts from the various labels for which she has recorded.

Still performing to this day, the sprightly 72 year old tours with her musical partner, the acoustic guitarist Carmelo Luggeri. They’ve been treking across the UK and Europe for almost two decades and appeared on the one night only revival of “The Old Grey Whistle Test” last year. The duo’s latest album “A Place Where I Can Go,” features 11 tracks including the duet “Horses” with Scottish singer Eddi Reader. Tasked with providing most of the backing on stage, Carmelo comes equipped with three acoustic guitars in various tunings and a temperamental Irish bouzouki hitched through a pedal board covered in gizmos. His feet are as busy as his hands. He even manages a bit of harmonica in-between. In comparison, Mr Sheeran looks a sloucher onstage!

A cancer survivor, her CV includes theatre projects (“Blood Brothers”), a cameo in the recent movie release “Rocket Man,” and considerable session work throughout the decades for her close friend Elton John. Today, she is financially secure but not fabulously wealthy, reconciled to a life without children – “Cancer of the womb put paid to that but I was too busy anyway with my career” and philosophical about fame.

It’s hard to determine why she hasn’t been more commercially successful though. If she lacked Debbie Harry’s visual appeal, she still – in her own words – “scrubbed up well,” and in any event, as John Lennon once infamously put it : “A pretty face may last a year or two, but pretty soon we’ll see what you can do.” There’s much to savour in her back catalogue, with her eponymously titled 1977 album a personal favourite of mine.