She tamed Keith Moon, got laughed into bed by Bob Dylan and went to a young David Bowie’s house for tuna sandwiches – but the blues singer’s 72 albums are what really define her
“No one has understood how deeply rooted in music I am because they got distracted by my tits,” Dana Gillespie complains.
Now 72, the singer and songwriter’s curvaceous figure ensured she regularly appeared in both tabloids and films from the 1960s to 80s but, she says, this was a mere sideline: music was always her mission in life, it’s just that the British refuse to take her seriously. In Austria and Germany – where she has enjoyed hit singles and hosted a long-running radio show – they do. Ditto in India, where she records devotional music with leading Indian musicians. But in Britain she is too often been relegated to “lover of” status for her string of flings with the likes of Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Mick Jagger and Michael Caine. “I’m Britain’s best-kept secret,” says Gillespie, and she may well be correct.