ONE of Scotland’s best known female singers, Eddi Reader, is in the Kingdom this month and thanks to On at Fife we have a pair of tickets up for grabs.

Eddi is at the Rothes Halls on Sunday 29th March and a Times reader can be there.

Eddi Reader found fame in the 80’s as lead singer of Fairground Attraction. Their single Perfect and the album First of a Million Kisses both topped the British charts.

Since then it’s been her solo work which has shown Eddi’s ability to assimilate different musical styles and make them very much her own.

From the traditional to the contemporary, Eddi Reader brings song to life with a unique depth and quality of emotional performance.

Eddi was born in Glasgow, the daughter of a welder, and the eldest of seven children. Music has always been part of the family and her brother, Francis, is vocalist with the band The Trash Can Sinatras.

She began playing the guitar at the age of ten, and started her musical career busking, first in Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street, then in the early 1980s, in London and around Europe where she also worked with circus and performance artistes.

In 1984, Eddi returned to the UK from Paris, where she had been working as a singer for the composer Vladimir Cosma. Through her contact with the brass section session players, The Kick Horns, in London, she signed a contract with EMI, and recorded two singles with the disco group Outbar Squeek.

Around the same time, she met and asked Mark E. Nevin, a guitarist and songwriter from the band Jane Aire and the Belvederes to write for her and they recorded two songs as The Academy of Fine Popular Music. They subsequently formed Fairground Attraction, together with Simon Edwards (guitarrón — a Mexican acoustic bass guitar) and Roy Dodds (drums & percussion). In 1988 the band signed to RCA/BMG records and released their first single, “Perfect”, which became a UK number one, winning best single at the 1989 BRIT Awards. Their first album, The First of a Million Kisses, was also a success, reaching number two in the UK Albums Chart, and winning best album at the 1989 Brits.

This success was short-lived, however. In November 1989, after a break, during which Eddi had her first child, Charlie, with her French-Algerian partner Milou, arguments arose within the group, and Nevin abandoned a recording session for the second album, which eventually led to the splitting of the band. A makeshift second album, a collection of B-sides and live tracks, Ay Fond Kiss, was rushed out the following year.

She then went solo and found a great deal of success. In 2009 she released her ninth studio album, Love is the Way, which was self-produced. In a special arrangement with record label Rough Trade, she sold an exclusive, pre-released and minimally-packaged version of the disc on her 19-date autumn 2008 UK tour.

In early 2010, Eddi appeared on the Irish language album Ceol ‘10 Súil Siar, singing an Irish language version of the Fairground Attraction song “Perfect” called “Foirfe”. In December she released a live album on her own label and sold exclusively via her online store, Live in Japan. Recorded from the sound desk at her Japan shows in September 2009, it was mastered and mixed by Mark Freegard who had worked on the 2009 album Love is the Way.

To win the tickets to hear Eddi Reader at the Rothes Halls on Sunday 29th March get a Times and send your entry to the Times Office, 17 Bank Street, Lochgelly, by Monday, 23rd March.