EDDI Reader is to celebrate four decades in the music industry with a tour of Scotland.
One of the country’s best-known performers, she has been awarded an MBE, four honorary degrees, and sung to millions of people on some of the world’s biggest concert and festival stages.
Reader has also collaborated with a host of stars across a myriad of genres including folk, jazz, pop, world, punk and even classical work with various orchestras.
She will share reminiscences, as well as her repertoire with audiences on the tour, which includes dates in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Perth.
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Reader said she was delighted to be able to tour again and is looking forward to the shows.
“The past 40 years have been a remarkable experience – I still can’t believe it’s really been that long,” she added. “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.”
From her earliest years playing the folk clubs of the west of Scotland, to achieving huge international success with her band Fairground Attraction, Reader’s musical direction has taken numerous unexpected twists and turns over the years.
First rising to prominence as a backing vocalist for bands like Eurythmics and Gang of Four, Eddi then joined Fairground Attraction, who stormed the charts in the late 1980s with their debut album First of a Million Kisses. Accompanying single, Perfect, was a number one hit in the UK and earned the band “Best Single” at the 1989 BRIT Awards.
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Her successful solo career includes the release of highly acclaimed albums such as The Songs of Robert Burns released in 2003.
Awarded the MBE in 2006 for services to singing, she took her Burns songs on tour all over the world and found connections to the bard everywhere from Kolkata, India to Sydney, Australia.
In 2006 she released Peacetime on Rough Trade Records, featuring the finest traditional players in the United Kingdom and produced by the 2003 BBC Radio 2 Folk Musician of The Year, John McCusker.
Reader made her Hollywood movie debut in 2010 when she featured in Richard Linklaters Me And Orson Welles with Zak Efron and Clare Danes. She played a chanteuse in the movie and is featured singing Let’s Pretend That There’s A Moon with the Jools Holland Orchestra. The original soundtrack features another two performances from Eddi.
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