SINGER/songwriter Kiki Dee proved she’s still got the music in her after performing to a packed auditorium at The Pound Arts Centre in Corsham on Saturday evening.

The performance with her musical business partner, guitarist Carmelo Luggeri, with whom she has been working for 24 years, was part of The Pound’s five-day Music and Mayhem Festival which ends today.

Whisked off to London when she was just a teenager, having been signed to Fontana Records, Bradford-born Kiki Dee sang backing vocals for the likes of Dusty Springfield and years later enjoyed her first hit Loving and Free written when she was only 21.

Becoming the first female singer in the UK to sign with Motown’s Tamla Records, she went on to earn herself a 'Best Actress in a Musical' Olivier Award nomination for her role in Willy Russell’s West End musical Blood Brothers.

She’s probably best remembered for her 1976 duet hit with Elton John, Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, but has had a string of solo hits including I Got the Music in Me and the beautiful Amourese.

For the past two decades, she been working with Carmelo Luggeri, touring their semi-acoustic live show across the UK and Europe.

Their latest critically-acclaimed album, A Place Where I Can Go, features 11 tracks including the duet Horses with Scottish singer Eddi Reader.

Tasked with providing most of the backing on stage, Carmelo comes equipped with two acoustic guitars and one electric guitar in various tunings and a temperamental Irish bouzouki, all hitched through a loop station pedal board covered in gizmos.

Having observed that he was using a loop station “long before” Ed Sheeran, Carmelo’s feet were kept as busy as his hands. He plays a mean slide guitar and even manages a bit of harmonica in-between.

2018 marks Kiki's 55th year in the music industry and, although she never sought fame, she has cemented her status as one of the UK's finest and most-revered female vocalists.

It would be foolish to expect 71 year-old Kiki Dee’s voice to have the richness of tone and power to hit those high notes that she once possessed when she was in her prime. But, after five decades as a performer, she has proved she’s a musical survivor who knows how to work an audience.

A slightly late start, a ‘droopy’ microphone stand and technical problems after a power surge did nothing to dim Kiki's and Carmelo's enthusiasm and the audience enjoyment of their two-hour set.

In the process, they took the audience on a journey of stories and songs which included Kiki’s own solo hits, plus unique covers of songs by artists such as Kate Bush, the Everly brothers, Depeche Mode, Harry Manx and Frank Sinatra.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, marred only by the technical difficulties and Carmelo’s tendency to re-tune his guitar strings between each song in the set, which seemed to make the second half run slightly less smoothly than the first.

But who wouldn't want to be that lucky man who got to dance with Kiki during the second half of the set.