Lulu hopes to find lost Bowie duets as she enjoys a career renaissance on the eve of first Australian tour

BRITISH pop legend Lulu is looking for the missing tapes of a recording session she did with her former paramour, the late David Bowie.

British pop superstar Lulu is touring Australia for the first time. Picture: Dylan Robinson

BRITISH pop legend Lulu is on the hunt for the missing tapes of a recording session she did with her former paramour David Bowie.

As she prepares to kick off her Australian tour, the To Sir With Love star said she enjoyed a brief working and personal relationship with Bowie after she enjoyed a hit with his song The Man Who Sold The World in the mid 1970s.

One of the songs they recorded was Can You Hear Me? which featured on his Young Americans album.

Another was a hilarious “nursery rhyme” called Dodo which has surfaced online in recent years and declared “brilliant” by Robbie Williams.

“I want to try to get the tapes I did with him in New York after The Man Who Sold The World was a hit,” she said.

“When I went with Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe — when they were doing that film together — to see David do a radio show years ago and we went backstage and he said ‘I have those songs, I have to get them to you’ but he never did.”

Lulu wants to find the missing recordings she made with David Bowie. Picture: Dylan Robinson

As one of pop music’s survivors, Lulu has a connection to any entertainment A-lister you care to mention.

She was married to Bee Gee Maurice Gibb, is Rashida Jones’ godmother, wrote one of Tina Turner’s biggest hits (I Don’t Wanna Fight) and was told by James Brown “you and I were born in the same pond”.

The 67-year-old singer, songwriter and actor is enjoying a career renaissance thanks to last year’s critically acclaimed record Making Life Rhyme.

The success of that record — and her appeal with a younger audience courtesy of her Take That duet Relight My Fire and her cover of We’ve Got Tonight with The Voice coach Ronan Keating — won her an invitation to perform at the prestigious Glastonbury Festival.

Gazing out at tens of thousands of young music fans cheering her on was “thrilling”.

“I have been in this business a long time, I’ve been around and I’ve been down. It was mind-boggling to see the reaction because sometimes I feel like I am still waiting to be discovered.

“I think they got it because my band is s ... hot, I can still sing and there’s respect.”

Lulu made her film debut opposite Sidney Poitier in To Sir With Love. Picture: Supplied.

She maintains a deep fondness for one of the songs which propelled her career worldwide, the title track of her film debut To Sir With Love.

The vehicle for Sidney Poitier’s career launch in Britain not only generated a pop hit for her but a lasting and profound statement on racial inequality. It was released the same year as his other acclaimed film Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?

“I wasn’t really aware of what that film meant until afterwards; I was so young,” she said.

“It was politically revolutionary to make a movie like that in the sixties, when holding hands with a black man, let alone kissing him, would be controversial.

“I was lucky to be connected to him at that time and now, when I sing that song, I am coming from a place of gratitude because this is what I was born to do and I am still doing it.”

Lulu was invited to join British expat entertainer Leo Sayer on a national tour of Australia.

The Leo and Lulu tour kicks off at Sydney’s State Theatre on June 23 before hitting Hamer Hall Melbourne June 24, Festival Theatre Adelaide June 29, QPAC Concert Hall Brisbane June 30, Concert Hall Perth July 3.

Originally published as Lulu hopes to find lost Bowie duets as she enjoys a career renaissance on the eve of first Australian tour