Eddi Reader announces 40 Years Live Tour

This April, Eddi Reader, one of Scotland’s all-time greatest female voices and performers, returns to stages across Scotland, including dates in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Perth, with a special 40 Years Live Tour.

In his review of her 2018 album Cavalier, Neil McFadyen summed up her pre-solo career in a tidy para: Eddi started singing in public in Ayrshire and Glasgow folk clubs in the late 1970s. She soon moved to London in search of work as a session singer, a move which saw her work alongside Gang of Four, Alison Moyet and The Eurythmics. It was with Fairground Attraction‘s huge hit, Perfect, that Eddi started to make a UK-wide impact. The band’s debut album, The First of a Million Kisses, reached number two in the album charts, and won Best Album in the 1989 Brit Awards. The album was a kaleidoscope of country, folk and jazz and ever since, Eddi’s music has remained a colourful, constantly changing, fascinating mix of styles.

In 2013, Eddi’s Vagabond album was released, and during a Folk Radio interview, Simon Holland touched on her mix of musical styles on that record when he noted the swing style to the music of Midnight In Paris and Baby’s Boat. Her answer presented a lovely trip down memory lane to her first public singing.

“My travelling came through music. Without doubt when those drunken angels at the decades of parties in shipyard-builder-hard-masculine-working-women and men sung I was taken out of Maryhill Glasgow and floated in whatever glamorous Hollywood landscape they painted. I was in awe of that popular songbook. Grandad’s Glasgow pub songs and flapper romance tunes, Al Jolson through to uncle Frank’s Bing Crosby or Gene Kelly, older aunty’s Doris Day to my mum’s sweet Ruby Murray and Peggy Lee, my dad’s rockin’ Elvis and the younger adults with their Beatles posters getting annoyed that the records where shut down to let the older ones sing. I adored it all. It was a right of passage when I was allowed to stay up and lead a song to sing with them when I was very young.”

Encompassing her wide variety of work over the years, 40 Years Live promises to be an outstanding night of entertainment. As Eddi Reader fans will know, no two performances are ever the same, but each concert promises to be a special evening with Eddi reminiscing and sharing the music of the past 40 years while looking forward to many more ahead (Read our review of her 2013 Union Chapel concert here).

Eddi Reader said: “I’m delighted to be bringing this extra-special show to fans this spring.

“The past forty years have been a remarkable experience – I still can’t believe it’s really been that long! I’ve been lucky enough to meet and work with some incredible musicians over the years, many of whom have become lifelong friends.

“I’ve also witnessed a lot of change in the industry, the coming and going of many folk. Throughout it all, the music itself, and my love of sharing it with people, has been the constant driving force.”

Throughout her successful solo career, Eddi has released consistently great works, including highly acclaimed albums such as The Songs of Robert Burns and 2018’s Cavalier.

Over the past four decades, Eddi has been awarded four honorary degrees, an MBE, sung to millions on some of the world’s greatest concert and festival stages, and collaborated with a host of stars across a myriad of genres including folk, jazz, pop, world, punk and even classical work with various orchestras.

Not to be missed.