"I’ve never been to Radlett or Watford before and I don’t really know the area at all, but I do know Elton’s from round there, isn’t he? I’d better play Don’t Go Breaking My Heart to his home crowd, then!“

Kiki Dee has just started out on her latest UK tour, with her musical partner of 18 years, Carmelo Luggeri, and the pair are set to play the Radlett Centre next week, and Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, her 1976 world-wide Number One duet with Elton John will most definitely be on the setlist.

“It’s still great fun to sing,“ says the 67-year-old, originally from Bradford, who is clearly revelling in her 51 years in the business.

“Carmelo and I do a slowed-down version of it, which has a little bit of pathos. It’s an acoustic show, so we can’t do a straight cover of the original, but I really enjoy it.“

It may be one of Kiki’s – real name Pauline Matthews – best known and loved hits, but she has established herself as one of the country’s most successful, and enduring, singers entirely in her own right.

She was born in Bradford in 1947 and discovered her musical talent from a very early age.

“I was a little girl, the youngest of three in a down-to-earth, salt-of-the-earth Yorkshire family,“ she remembers, “and I found that if I sang I got lots of attention because the bigger ones were noisier.“

She sang along to her older brother’s Elvis records and discovered she could sing in tune and harmonise with them.

“I wasn’t particularly academic at school and, as the song says, I just seemed to have the music in me!“ She managed all of three months in a “proper job“ at Boots The Chemist before her musical career took off – she was spotted by a record company scout singing with local dance bands and signed to Fontana Records in 1963, when she was just 16.

“With hindsight, I think that was a little bit young. I think if I’d spent five, ten years on the road finding out who I was as a person, it might have been a different career. But obviously I’m glad I was discovered.“

Moving down to Sixties London from Bradford was a huge culture shock for the teenage Kiki.

“It took five-and-a-half hours to get down to the London on the train in the early ‘60s, and it was like entering into a different universe,“ she says. “The Beatles, the Stones, Andy Warhol – all the iconic ‘60s culture was down in London and it was the most phenomenal place. I was like a kid in a sweetshop! It was the most exciting thing, being around at that time in history.“

Kiki released her first single, Early Night, and her debut album, I’m Kiki Dee, in 1963 and also worked as a backing session singer, working with artists such as Dusty Springfield, who was on the same label.

“I adored Dusty, I loved her voice, I still do,“ says Kiki. “She was fantastic. She was seven years older than me. She seemed terribly sophisticated to me because I was just this kid from Bradford, I was in awe of her.

“I learnt a lot from her, from being around her. She had an amazing sense of style and she was one of the first female artists who stood up for what she wanted in the studio.“

This had a big influence on the young Kiki, who has always loved experimenting with new vocal and musical styles and techniques. In 1970, she became the first British artist to be signed by Tamla Motown, something Kiki counts as one of the highlights of her career, releasing an album through the label before signing to Elton John’s Rocket Records in the early 1970s.

She had her first UK Top 20 hit in 1973 with Amoureuse, sang backing vocals on the future Watford FC chairman’s global smash hit album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, recorded two albums produced by Elton and starting writing her own material.

In 1976, Don’t Go Breaking My Heart topped the UK charts for six weeks and also reached Number 1 in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Italy.

Doesn’t Kiki ever get tired of singing it or of being remembered mainly for that one song?

“Someone once said to me ‘Milestone or millstone?’ and I think it’s a milestone,“ she says, “because I’m very conscious that I’m still working, and still able to pull a crowd in. There’s a lot of talented people out there struggling and so many artists out on the road, so to have that fame, if you like, from the association with Elton, well you’ve got to use it in a positive way, it would be ridiculous not to do that.“

Kiki is still in touch with Elton after all these years.

“We talk, we don’t ‘hang out’, but he’s always on the end of the phone if I need to talk. We see each other about once a year, I’d say. And I always get an orchid and two bottles of Champagne every March for my birthday from Elton. I struggled with buying presents for him for years so in the end I said ‘I can’t do this anymore!’ and now I make a donation to the AIDS Foundation for his present and he’s very happy with that.“

Kiki met guitarist Carmelo Luggeri 18 years ago when he produced a couple of the tracks on a ‘best of’ album she was making, and they hit it off musically instantly and have been making music and touring together ever since.

“I think we both wanted to do something that wasn’t about making money,“ she says. “You get to a certain age and you’re more interested in pushing yourself and moving on to new things. And it works out, the two of us on the road.“

Kiki and Carmelo see their acoustic live show as a musical journey, with all of Kiki’s hits, music that she and Carmelo have written together and a number of carefully selected covers of songs by artists such as Kate Bush, Neil Young and Frank Sinatra.

“It’s going to be a real mix, it’s dynamic, it goes everywhere. With most artists of my generation, the audience pretty much knows what they’re going to get, but with one of my concerts, people generally don’t know what it’s going to be like, but I find that quite exciting.

“I’m very proud that I’m still doing this after 51 years,“ she continues, “and still being innovative, trying new things. I’ll carry on as long as I feel I can do it and still have the joy from doing it. If people will still come and see me, I’ll keep going a little bit longer!“

  • Kiki Dee and Carmelo Luggeri – An Acoustic Journey is at the Radlett Centre, Aldenham Avenue, Radlett on Thursday, October 16 at 8pm. Details: 01923 859291, radlettcentre.co.uk