BARBARA DICKSON, OBE, emerged from the Scottish Folk Revival of the 1960s and has become the biggest selling Scottish female album artiste of all time.

Fifer Barbara will be at the Rothes Halls, in Glenrothes, next month and her Kingdom fans will love this chance to hear her string of famous hits.

Known to a wider audience in the 1970s and 1980s with hits including ‘Answer Me’, ‘Another Suitcase in Another Hall’, ‘The Caravan Song’ and ‘I know Him so Well’, she enjoyed ten years of chart success as a pop star.

As an actress, she has appeared in the award winning theatre productions, ‘John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert’, ‘Blood Brothers’ and ‘Spend, Spend, Spend’. She was the original Mrs Johnstone and Willy Russell’s muse.

Born in Dunfermline, Barbara’s love of music was evident from an early age - she began studying piano at the age of five and by twelve had also taken up the guitar.

She developed an interest in folk music whilst at school which led to floor spots singing at her local folk club. After relocating to Edinburgh she went on to combine a day job in the Civil Service whilst steadily pursuing her first love, music, in local pubs and clubs.

The watershed moment came in 1968 when, after being refused leave from her job for an overseas singing engagement, Barbara resigned, determined to pursue a career for herself in the burgeoning folk scene of the late 1960s.

The next few years saw Barbara gradually ‘paying her dues’ on the Scottish and English folk circuit, steadily building a reputation and working with the likes of Billy Connolly, Rab Noakes, Archie Fisher and Gerry Rafferty. Early folk albums, which she recorded for Trailer and Decca Records, were well received.

Barbara readily admits that she would have been happy to continue her life as a travelling folk musician, but a meeting with an old friend, musician and playwright, Willy Russell, in Liverpool, in the early 70s was to change the course of her career completely. Barbara’s stage career then took off, followed by her first hit single Answer Me in 1976 and a guest residency on the BBC’s hugely successful The Two Ronnies show later that year brought Barbara into the homes of more than 15 million viewers on Saturday evenings. Other hit singles followed and Barbara’s many stage and other successes have been well chronicled. Awards include an MBE, an Honorary Doctorate of Music from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and The Pride of Scotland award at the Scottish Music Awards. Barbara’s autobiography A Shirt Box Full Of Songs was published in 2009.

Barbara said, “Gerry Rafferty was, for me, amongst the best songwriters of his generation. This is subjective of course, but his catalogue stands to attention when his name is called, in the pantheon of great artistes of the last fifty years, and Baker Street alone made him a worldwide household name.” Asked what the highlight of her career has been, she said, “I don’t know. It hasn’t happened yet!” Barbara is at the Rothes Halls on Friday 21st February at 7.30pm.