These days, she likes to live by the water, soothed by the hypnotic rise and fall of the tide. Here, at the river’s edge, Dee’s life has found its anchor.

“Eras change, music and tastes change,” she says, gazing out at the water, “but a while ago I knew I’d done all that I’d ever wanted to do. But a time came when my love for music had begun to die down. It was a case of same old, same old. But I started chilling out here. And I began writing again.”

Sitting beside her is her friend and musical collaborator of some 40 years, Steve White. Talking together, the memories come quick and fast. “Even though I’d grown sick of the music industry, I kept going to see friends who were in bands, like Steve, and their live gigs began to trigger me. I realised I wanted to get back to making music, after being off the whole music-making process for such a long, long time. But now I’ve got back my love for music, because I had started to lose it.”

Renowned for her work with The Style Council, Wham!, Slam Slam (with Dr Robert) and Animal Nightlife, and also for a solo career that produced the timeless song See The Day, Dee is one of a tribe of resolute Londoners whose continued collective efforts seem to prevent the old bruised city from breaking loose of its moorings and floating away up the estuary.

Born in Balham in south London – almost by default, her mum going into labour at a house party after laughing hysterically at a joke she’d been told – Dee today has acquired a new perspective. “Living around here [on a bank of Old Father Thames] has calmed me down after times when things had all got a bit too much.”

This year she returns to the fray with a brand new album entitled Just Something (Acid Jazz). “I’m right back where I started, and blessed to be surrounded by people who feel exactly the same way as I do.”

Steve nods: “Something that stuck with me years ago was never let your love of music be spoiled by the music business. I’ve always strived hard to remember that the business is very separate from what I get from music. I’ve never lost that innocence of listening to music, the new stuff alongside the classic stuff. There are a lot of musicians who end up getting affected by the business, and that was a pitfall I wanted to avoid.”

Just before joining Wham! Dee had worked with an assortment of bands, but it was with the Council that she says she acquired real experience and training. “I was encouraged to experiment. For that I’ll always be grateful.” Yet she didn’t sustain the great lasting wounds inflicted on so many by a juggernaut industry too adept at grinding up and spitting out its very best souls. “I could have been, but I honestly think that The Style Council had a good, warm family vibe, with as many men and women in the band, and that was a very open-minded thing that Paul [Weller] did, because it was so unusual for the time. We were lucky. And we did have a lot of fun, didn’t we…”

“We did. Dee and I have similar ideas. We ask ourselves, how long have we got left? Right, so if we can still do it, let’s give it a go,” says Steve in reference to their upcoming 10-date UK tour that kicks off in Glasgow on 24^th September. “We want to see where we can go with this.” Will he be Max Roaching the large band from the back of the stage? “I’ll be sitting there, holding it all together, using my experience of playing live and saying ‘This is what we need’, because you can’t afford to not make it work.”

The live band comprises a mix of young and old, with experience coming by way of Ernie McKone on bass and Adrian Reid on keys. There’s also a young guitarist called Harry Hayward. “He’s a bit of a Wes Montgomery on the lead stuff, with a touch of George Benson on rhythm. We just wanted the right people for the job, so the band members have coalesced fairly naturally. But I’m well happy Ernie’s on board. There’s a year’s worth of planning gone into this tour, so it was a case of noting people along the way as to who would be ideal.”

Soul and jazz-funk are Dee’s lodestones, as evinced on the LP by covers of Weldon Irvine’s I Love You and Renee Geyer’s Be There In The Morning. “Eddie Piller [boss of Acid Jazz Records] suggested I record I Love You because he thought it would suit my voice, which he has always loved. So my version is very similar in arrangement to the original, but there is something in it that makes it sound refreshed.” Other tracks have been co-written with Ernie McKone and Mike McEvoy who are Dee’s “main go-to guys”.

One track on the LP, Walk Away, was co-written with fellow Style Councillor, Mick Talbot, who, along with Leah Weller, will be joining Dee on stage for the final gig of the tour in London. “I was the last one called in on The Style Council, which was when I first met Steve, and even when I took a big time out from making music, I was always in contact with him. He’s really easy-going. I mean, I like to be easy-going, but I’m a little bit… Let’s just say he has a very calming effect on me. I think that because I’m surrounded by really high-class musicians, I now totally remember why I did it in the first place, and know why I’m doing it now.

“But unlike Steve, I don’t listen to up-to-date music, so to find the new good stuff, it has to be brought to me. I prefer a certain genre of music, with certain productions that I like to keep in mind. There’s something about the way vocalists were in the old days that remains original, so I try to listen to more of that.” A case of discovering the new by way of revisiting the old. “I don’t want to listen to what’s around at the moment because I feel it will affect my own sensibility. Vocalists can tend to be parrots, so I try not to cloud my ears with nonsense.”

Dee says she performs vocal exercises every other day. “It’s like going to the gym for the voice. The first lot of rehearsals will be relaxed as we work out what we’re doing, but by the time we get to the second rehearsals, I’ll be taping, listening to, and critiquing them.” Perfectionism then. “I’ve always done this. My voice – because I’m older – has changed, so it’s going to be interesting to experiment again with songs, old and new. I won’t know until we get into rehearsals. The situation is keeping me on my toes.” But what of playing longer freeform pieces? “Oh yes, definitely, I want to show off the band I’ve got.”

Of the recent dystopia that has blighted the lives of so many, both are sanguine. “Lockdown did me a lot of harm – I’ve got a few more neuroses, just to add to the usual – but at the same time it made me want to get back to doing what matters. It makes me sad. It seems that as much as we’ve learned over the years – and I was a kid once who went on every march and demo in the hope I could help make the world a better place – today it seems like it’s all been forgotten. It’s all come back to garbage.”

“Music has always been a help and a therapy for me,” adds the master drummer. “I’m not a religious person, but if there has been one tangible thing that has brought something spiritual to me, it is music. So I’m going to hang on to that for as long as I can. Life is transient, and health is wealth. So if I’m able to play at a decent level and remain healthy, I am going to be committed and dedicated and do as much as I can, while I can. What sparked it for me was when Dee played me a really great record and I was sold. This tour is a challenge. At this stage in my career it’s not about showing off technical wizardry or anything like that, but rather playing in service to great songs.”

Perhaps then, a person must lose themselves in order to find their way home. Dee’s gaze turns towards the river. “I’ve come to realise there’s no set way to a hit. You just make music as best you can. And nothing should be so stressful as to stifle creativity. If music ever became like that for me, I’d drop it. But I’ve been working my way up to this point for some time. And today, I have the same love for music I had when I was young.”

Jason Holmes
@JasonAHolmes

Just Something is out now on Acid Jazz Records