Lulu may look like the perfect pop package but, as she tells Kevin Bridges, she’s a real rock chick at heart.

SOME singers have repeatedly topped the charts at home and abroad, others have penned international hits, made movies, hosted their own TV shows and appeared in dramas or musicals. But there’s only one who has managed to do all these things while remaining Scotland’s favourite and most enduring star.

Now, 40 years after she first appeared on the scene with Shout, Lulu is on a mission. This month she embarks on a UK tour, and releases her new album, Back On Track.

This is the album she feels she was born to make, the one that will remind the world that it’s as a singer she wants to be known.

“This album is long overdue,” she explains. “They’re songs that suit my voice, the type of thing I should have done instead of songs like I’m A Tiger or Boom Bang A Bang. It’s taken me a long time to get here.”

Having tried many musical styles in the past the new material finds her in full-on rock chick mode.

“I’m like a cat with a thousand lives musically, but this is where I really sit,” she says. “I haven’t been true to my own voice in the past. When I was told I could make the album I wanted I said ‘at last’. Sometimes in the ’60s I’d go home and cry. I’d be trying to be stoic and the tears would come into my eyes.”

Even her finest moment at the time, To Sir With Love, which hit number one in America and sold a million, wasn’t released as an A-side in the UK.

“Mickie Most wouldn’t put it out. I didn’t stamp and scream but I did beg him. I’d go home and kick and throw things but I was very young and wouldn’t argue with a successful producer like him,” she says.

In the end the feisty lass from Glasgow found herself being styled as a safe, girl-next-door, all-round, family entertainer.

“I sort of started out as the original punk kid with this rough, raw voice and attitude. Then I was told to pull it back, tone it down, soften it up, get rid of the rough edges. It was a shame.

“My manager then thought that doing lots of different things would help my career have longevity and she wasn’t entirely wrong in that. The trouble was I never had a working partner who saw me as a rock singer. They’d look at me and see I was little and cute and want me to do pop numbers. I was brought up on black music and gospel. I loved Ray Charles and Bessie Smith — that was the music that got deep into my soul, then I came into this business,” she smiles.

A string of hit TV shows culminated in Lulu doing the Eurovision Song Contest — good for her career but not necessarily what she felt suited to. At her lowest ebb, salvation came with an offer to sign for Atlantic Records in America and work with top producers.

“I couldn’t get out quick enough, can you imagine?” Lulu exclaims. “Mickie Most wanted to renew my contract but then that came along! I was overawed and really nervous. The end results were fantastic but they did nothing over in the UK. Back here I was just seen as Lulu the little dolly.”

The experience did increase her confidence, however. “Aretha Franklin came on my show and said how much one of my tracks meant to her. My brother also told me it wasn’t that I couldn’t write, it was just that I hadn’t.”

Despite her talent and success, Lulu was struggling with insecurity. “I never gave myself enough credit, never trusted myself enough. I always thought other people knew better, while inside I was saying to myself this isn’t right. Nobody knew what to do with me, but inside I always knew,” she continues.

“When I started out I just got on with it. People were saying ‘Wow!’ and I was like, ‘What’s the big deal?’ I do watch things like Pop Idol and I feel you have to be crazy just to want to be famous — it’s insane! The stuff that comes with it is very hard to deal with. I managed . . . just. I have strength of character and I’m very resilient. Simon Cowell tells it like it is. It’s rare in this business for people to be really honest with you and it’s so important.”

The international smash I Don’t Want To Fight, which Lulu wrote for Tina Turner, was a huge confidence boost for Lulu and now she writes a lot of her own material. In fact, she’s so focused on her music that she finds other things, like the frequent remarks about how good she looks, a distraction.

“It’s not that it gets on my nerves,” she says. “I’d rather they say that than that I look like the back of a lorry. I’ve always tried to look good. My mother always looked good. It’s the way I was brought up. But I’d rather people talked about my music than what I was wearing.”

Lulu’s tour this month will see her playing more dates than she has in a long time, including what should turn out to be a triumphant homecoming gig at the Clyde Auditorium on March 26.

“It’s too long since I toured like this, I can’t wait, I’m driving everybody mad saying when can I get going. I want the roof to come off. Being Scottish has had a tremendous amount to do with how I’ve lived my life. It’s given me a lot of strength. There’s something about the Scottish characteristic of stoicism, it must be down to the cold weather,” she smiles.

“It’s very important to be accepted by my own people. When I play in Scotland I get goosebumps and it’s very emotional. I’ll put all the family and friends at the back though, you don’t want them in the front row! Being a Glaswegian I know how fiercely loyal they can be, but if they don’t like you they will tell you!” she laughs.

Other rock legends have wanted to work with Lulu and it’s something she enjoys.

“There are a couple of tracks I did with David Bowie back in the ’70s that he still has and I hope they’ll see the light of day sometime. Also, it was amazing getting to write with Elton John. I was sitting at a dinner table with him and Gary Barlow and Elton said, ‘I’d like to write with you’. I thought, ‘Is it me he’s talking to?’”

Lulu is clearly more enthused by her music than she has been for many years and, having already scored hits in five decades, few would argue that she could notch up a sixth.

“I’d love to sing with Pink. I love her energy,” she says. “I still do what I always did as a child. I’ll sit and play things again and again and again until everyone is screaming for me to take it off!”

However, Lulu still has a great sense of humour. When asked if the album after Back On Track may well be called Still On Track, she says, “Oh probably Just Fell Off, and it’ll be a folk album!” before collapsing into a fit of giggles.

Lulu, a national institution, Back On Track . . . and that really is something to Shout about!  

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