Kiki Dee - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1967-1981
The Top of the Pops recordings mentioned above make up the first three tracks, all from 1967. They also make up tracks 9 and 10, from 1973, and tracks 11, 12, and 13, from 1974. By 1973, that radio show usually just played the recorded versions, and it was getting increasingly rare for them to play unique versions recorded just for the show. But I double checked these 1973 and 1974 and confirmed they all are unique.
By the way, a few of these Top of the Pops songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. That was due to the usual problem of BBC DJ Brian Matthew talking over parts of the song. As usual, I fixed that with the help of the UVR5 program.
Put together, all those Top of the Pops recordings only make up 27 minutes of music, which would make for a very short album. So I went looking for other BBC performances she did. I found some stray things here and there, mostly from BBC TV shows. Tracks 4, 5 and 6 are from "Scott," a 1968 TV show hosted by singer Scott Walker. Tracks 7 and 8 are from different TV shows in 1971. Tracks 16 and 17 are from a 1980 show, and track 18 is from a 1981 show.
That just leaves two songs. Track 14, "Water," is from a BBC concert she did in 1975. I'm only including the one song though, because I actually found two BBC concerts she did that year, and they're very similar. I'll be posting the other one in full, so the only thing that interested me from this one was that single unique song. I also found a 1977 BBC concert she did, so expect that one to be posted soon as well.
Finally, track 15, "Don't Go Breaking My Heart," is the song Dee is best known for. This duet with Elton John was a massive hit in 1976, hitting Number One in the both the U.S. and Britain. I wanted to include a version of it on this album. However, the TV appearances I found just had Dee and John lip-syncing. But I did find a concert version from 1976 that featured both of them, so I included that one. For all the other songs with audience applause, I got rid of the applause using the MVSEP program. But I kept the applause for this one, due to the spoken intro and some other things that wouldn't have sounded right without crowd noise.
This album is 59 minutes long.
01 Excuse Me
02 If I Loved You [Edit]
03 She Was Really Saying Something [Edit]
04 Passing Strangers (Scott Walker & Kiki Dee)
05 Up, Up and Away
06 Games People Play
07 You've Made Me So Very Happy
08 Do You Know the Way to San Jose
09 Amoureuse [Edit]
10 Loving and Free
11 Little Frozen One
12 Hard Luck Story
13 I've Got the Music in Me
14 Water
15 Don't Go Breaking My Heart (Elton John & Kiki Dee)
16 Star
17 Twenty-Four Hours
18 Midnight Flyer
All songs Kiki Dee except where noted
laregly a backing singer or session singer Kiki never really hit the big time as she deserved to, except perhaps with the one off hit with Elton so this is a welcome treat to survey her extant work and show off her undated talent
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