WHAT’S THE STORY?

LULU, the wee woman with the big voice, is to perform an intimate acoustic gig followed by a question-and-answer session to raise funds for a cancer charity.

The 66-year-old singer is to donate her time ahead of her performance on the main stage at this year’s Wickerman Festival, it was announced today.

The charity gig in aid of Maggie’s Centres will be held in the new Pianoman Tent on July 24. Audience places will be on a first come, first served basis with entry by donation.

“I’m looking forward to performing a few acoustic songs and answering questions from the audience in the Pianoman Tent at this year’s Wickerman,” said Lulu.

“The songs will be performed in a different style to the ones that I will be performing later that evening on the main stage. Knowing that this intimate performance will be for a truly worthy cause is fantastic and I look forward to being a part of it.”

Added festival director Jenny Camm: “Having the Pianoman Tent at the festival for the first time this year will be incredibly special and we hope it will provide an informal environment for those affected by [cancer] to find support in the day time and then to let their hair down and have some fun as the sun sets. It’s a real privilege to have Lulu supporting the charity by playing this unique gig and it will certainly offer Wickerman fans something a little different to kick off their weekend with us.”

LEGENDS

BORN Marie McDonald McLaughlin Laurie, the diminutive singer first burst on to the pop scene as a 15-year-old in 1964, amazing audiences with the power of her voice.

Her first hit Shout was well-named, but it was her sheer energy and dynamism as well as her voice that propelled her to the forefront of the music scene where she rubbed shoulders with legends like Jimi Hendrix, Frank Sinatra, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

It was an incredible achievement for a young girl with a troubled background. Born in Lennoxtown, East Dunbartonshire, she grew up in Glasgow’s Dennistoun, leaving school at the age of 14. She signed to Decca Records at the age of 15, and admits now that she felt uneducated and didn’t deal well with her emotions.

Fame was daunting as she had grown up on a tough estate in a home that had an outside toilet and no running hot water. Her father was a heavy drinker while her mother, who had been given away by her parents as a child, often didn’t get out of bed in the morning.

“I was a kid who grew up very quickly as far as being responsible was concerned,” said Lulu.

“Nobody knows why my mother was given away as a child and nobody talks about it. That’s why she often couldn’t get out of bed in the morning, and why I had to take responsibility from a very

early age.

“My father drank because he was in a lot of pain. His father, who was a troubled man, but not a bad man, was himself an alcoholic who threw my dad out with no shoes on to get a job aged just 14. My father drank to numb his feelings. I understand that now.”

She added: “I don’t think I’m emotionally grown up. Being in the music business from an early age sort of stunts your growth in that way.”

SVENGALI

SEEKING emotional stability she married Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees in 1969 when she was just 19 and he was 20. Sadly it turned out that, like her father, he was a heavy drinker with his alcohol dependence a factor in his early death at the age of 53 in 2003.

Lulu had divorced him in 1973 and went to marry celebrity hairdresser John Frieda in 1977 with whom she had her only child, Jordan, now 37. This marriage survived longer than her first but the pair divorced in 1991 which Lulu says “made the bottom of my world fall out”.

Another intense and often frustrating relationship was with Sixties pop Svengali Mickie Most, who steered her in a mainstream direction where she found international fame with hits like Eurovision winner Boom Bang-A-Bang in 1969 and To Sir With Love, the title song of the 1967 film. Other hits included I Am A Tiger and the Boat That I Row.

Her mainstream popularity has not prevented some odd musical partnerships, notably with David Bowie in 1974 with The Man Who Sold The World and Take That in 1993 with Relight

My Fire.

However while she admits having a physical relationship with Bowie she denies the well publicised rumour that she had an affair with Take That’s Jason Orange.

The nineties hit helped put her back in the spotlight after a quiet decade in the eighties when she was better known as the face of the Freeman’s catalogue than as a singer.

The lucrative Freeman’s deal did help to make her even richer and she sent her son to Eton, where he was a contemporary of Prince William and Eddie Redmayne.

The separation from her roots was complete when she vocally supported Margaret Thatcher in three elections.

She refuses to comment on Scottish independence but, still London based, says: “My Scottishness is even more deep-rooted in me now than when I lived in the country. They say that about the Celts: when they leave their hometowns they become even more patriotic. I’m definitely sentimental about it; I like to hold on to that part of me.”

She was made an OBE in 2000 and is now known as Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, her mother’s birth name.

In April she released her first new studio album in a decade, Making Life Rhyme, featuring 11 new tracks. To date she has released 22 studio albums and 72 singles.