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Barbara Dickson

Biography

Barbara Ruth Dickson OBE (born 27 September 1947) is a Scottish singer and actress whose hits include "I Know Him So Well" (a chart-topping duet with Elaine Paige), "Answer Me" and "January February". Dickson has placed fifteen albums on the UK Albums Chart from 1977 to date, and had a number of hit singles, including four which reached the top 20 on the UK Singles Chart. The Scotsman newspaper has described her as Scotland's best-selling female singer in terms of the numbers of hit chart singles and albums she has achieved in the UK since 1976.

She is also a two-time Olivier Award-winning actress, with roles including Viv Nicholson in the musical Spend Spend Spend, and was the original Mrs. Johnstone in Willy Russell's long-running musical Blood Brothers. On television she starred as Anita Braithwaite in Band of Gold.

Dickson was born in Dunfermline and went to Woodmill High School and Dunfermline High School. In the 1960s she lived in Dunfermline and in Dollytown, Rosyth, a prefab housing estate that was demolished in early 1970. Her father was a cook on a tugboat at Rosyth Dockyard and her mother was from Liverpool. She went to Camdean Primary School and Pitcorthie Primary School when she moved to Dunfermline.

Dickson's singing career started in folk clubs around her native Fife in 1964. Her first commercial recording was in 1968. Her early work included albums with Archie Fisher, the first of which, The Fate O' Charlie, a collection of songs from the Jacobite rebellions, was released in 1969. Her first solo album was Do Right Woman in 1970.

She became a well-known face on the British folk circuit of the late 1960s and early 1970s, but changed her career course after meeting Willy Russell. He was at that time a young student running a folk club in Liverpool. He showed Dickson the first draft of what later became the award-winning musical John, Paul, George, Ringo ... and Bert and asked her to perform the music. The combination of his writing, the cast (including Antony Sher, Bernard Hill and Trevor Eve, who were unknown at the time) and Dickson's idiosyncratic interpretation of Beatles songs made the show hugely successful.

The show's co-producer, Robert Stigwood, signed Dickson to his record label, RSO Records, for whom she recorded the album Answer Me, arranged and produced by Junior Campbell, the title track becoming a top 10 hit in 1976. John, Paul, George, Ringo … and Bert also led to her guest residency on The Two Ronnies, which brought Dickson's singing to the attention of more than ten million BBC Television viewers every week.