The Wild Reed: “A Classy Duo”

My favorite album of last year was The Long Ride Home by Kiki Dee and Carmello Luggeri. You may recall that I shared the album’s title track as part of my 2022 birthday post, “Deeper Understandings.”

For “music night” this evening at The Wild Reed I share another song from Kiki and Carmello’s The Long Ride Home – the rollicking “Can't Fix the Maybe.” It’s followed by excerpts from two April 2022 reviews, the first by Nicky Crewe and the second by Trevor Hodgett. Enjoy!

Kiki Dee and Carmelo Luggeri have been writing and recording together for the last twenty five years. The combination of Kiki Dee’s soulful vocals and Luggeri’s guitar virtuosity is a winning one and they have built up a strong and loyal fan base over that time.

This latest album of songs was created during the strange lockdown days of the last two years, when live performances and tours were on hold for many musicians.

Kiki Dee’s lyrics have an intimacy that seems to come from personal experience and they highlight her soulful smoky voice. Carmelo Luggeri’s production and playing references Latin and Indian influences as well as country and Americana with his use of dobro and pedal steel guitars. It’s a diverse and rich mix of influence and inspiration that also includes gospel singers on “No Angels Tonight.” The opening track, “The Long Ride Home,” rises to a crescendo with Luggeri’s Stratocaster guitar.

The lyrics of “What You Wish For” and “Small Mercies” take on an additional meaning, reflecting the resilience we had to find in ourselves during lockdown.

There is a real sense of Kiki Dee as a lyricist sharing her thoughts about her journey through her career as a musician and it is both poignant and encouraging to listen to the songs with attention. The final track on the album, “Happy Now,” is a lovely song and sentiment to end on.

Born Pauline Matthews in Bradford in 1947, she was singing professionally from the age of sixteen. Signed to Fontana in 1963, she sang backing vocals for Dusty Springfield and for some time shared a manager with her. She used to perform cover versions for BBC radio shows in the days before the launch of Radio 1. She was the first female UK singer to be signed to Motown’s Tamla Records, one of the first artists who could be described as “blue-eyed soul.” She came to world wide attention when she and Elton John had a huge hit with the 1976 duet “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” which went to number 1 on both the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Through the early-mid Seventies she had pop hits as a solo artist with “Amoureuse,” “Loving and Free” and “I’ve Got the Music In Me.”

She signed to Elton John’s label The Rocket Record Company [in 1973] and performed with him at Live Aid in 1985.

Over the years she has been in stage plays and musicals [most notably Blood Brothers, for which she was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical] and has released forty singles, three EPs and twelve albums. That is quite an achievement.

To read Nicky Crewe’s April 2022 review of The Long Ride Home in its entirety, click here.

Kiki Dee is fondly recalled for her duet with Elton John, “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” a 1976 UK Number One, and her early-70s solo hits. But her main focus since the mid-90s has been on her musical partnership with guitarist Carmello Luggeri.

Dee and Luggeri are a classy duo, and Luggeri is a guitarist of exceptional versatility who, on The Long Ride Home, plays sublimely on various electric and acoustic guitars as well as pedal steel guitar and Dobro, and whose playing alludes to blues and many other genres.

All the tracks are self-composed originals. Dee is a thoughtful lyricist who on the title track sings about the transience of human affairs and of the need for all of us to take control of our lives. Contrastingly there’s a sense of existential unease suggested in “What You Wish For,” and on “No Angels Tonight” she sounds weary and defeated by life. That song ends, however, with the gospel-style backing vocals offering a sense of hope.

Dee is an appealing unhistrionic singer who concentrates on communicating her lyrics with clarity and sensitivity, and while the charms of the album are low-key, they are also satisfying.

Trevor Hodgett’s four-star review of The Long Ride Home was first published in Mojo.

The Wild Reed

Sunday, February 12, 2023

“A Classy Duo”

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