Kiki Dee and Carmelo Ruggeri: More than 25 years of performing together
BRADFORD soul singer-songwriter Kiki Dee and guitarist Carmelo Luggeri bring their acoustic live show to All Saints Church, Pocklington, tomorrow night.
“I remember playing Pocklington Arts Centre with Carmelo years ago,” she says. “It’s lovely to be back in Pocklington again.”
Kiki and Carmelo have performed together for more than 25 years, from front rooms to churches, and now on The Long Ride Home tour of stripped-back songs that will visit East Riding Theatre, Beverley, too on October 18, the tour taking its title from their 2022 album, the fourth they have made as a duo.
The “long road home”? “I started trying to make it as a singer when I was 16 – I recorded On A Magic Carpet Ride for the Fontana label that year, which is worth a lot now – and now I’m coming to the end of my professional career and still enjoying it, which most of the time I have,” says Kiki, who was born Pauline Matthews in Little Horton, Bradford on March 6 1947.
Kiki has lived in Hertfordshire for 16 years, preceded by 24 in London, but Bradford will always have its place in her heart. “I grew up there and it formed me,” she says. Will she be returning “home” to perform in Bradford’s year as UK City of Culture 2025?
Kiki Dee and Carmelo Luggeri’s itinerary for The Long Road Home tour
“I haven’t got anything confirmed yet, though I did speak to them at the end of last year, when we played Silsden Town Hall [near Keighley] in November, hoping if anything could be worked out, but I haven’t been asked to do anything yet,” she says. Event organisers, please take note.
Now 78, Kiki has her place in British pop history as the first female singer from British shores to sign with Motown’s Tamla Records label in 1970 “I went to Detroit for 12 weeks to record with Frankie Wilson, doing some recordings in what is now the museum, a little house in the suburbs.
“I was over there initially as a guest, but they did sign me. I only had four tracks written for me, so some of the others picked for me were in keys that I wouldn’t have chosen, but as I was so far away from home, I went with it. You always needed ‘the song’ with Motown because they didn’t become an albums label until the 1970s.”
The Motown association continues. “I’m doing four dates as the special guest on Smokey Robinson’s tour this year, at Glasgow, Birmingham Cardiff and London in July,” says Kiki. “Originally they were going for a young soul singer, but I believe Smokey said, ‘No, Kiki Dee would be a better fit’.” Spot on, Smokey!
Tomorrow’s gig in Pocklington will combine Kiki and Carmelo’s stories with haunting songs from The Long Road Home, eclectic covers and Kiki’s treasured hits, I Got The Music In Me, Loving & Free, Amoureuse, Star and the chart-topping Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.
Kiki Dee and Carmelo Ruggeri taking the long road home
Covers, Kiki? “We do Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill – our version is very different! – and Robert Palmer’s Every Kinda People, Frank Sinatra too, and we’re kicking around some new ideas at the moment,” says Kiki.
“With a semi-acoustic set, we have more flexibility to do what we want than you do in a full band line-up.”
Don’t Go Breaking My Heart will feature, of course: the one that brought Elton John his first UK number one in 1976 in a duet with Kiki. “I was on Elton’s Rocket Record label and Amoureuse had been a hit in the charts. Gus Dudgeon had produced I’ve Got The Music In Me for me, and it was Gus’s idea to try out Don’t Go Breaking My Heart as a duet after originally I was only going to do backing vocals,” she says.
“It came about in a very casual way, and it’s interesting how certain significant events in your life can come out of such relaxed circumstances. Like doing the video in only ten minutes! Who knew it would become so successful. Elton was quite impatient anyway! He was never going to do 16 takes.”
Kiki Dee and Carmelo Luggeri, All Saints Church, Pocklington, Saturday, March 29, 7.30pm. Box office: kikiandcarmelo.com