By Angelina Aspinall IT was ten years ago to the month that Fairground Attraction had a number one hit in the UK singles chart with Perfect. Singer Eddi Reader said she had been really surprised when she heard the news. And Happy? Sort of. "I remember weeding in the garden after I'd heard. I didn't know what it was going to do to me, my family or the band. I was scared of what might happen," she explained. Suddenly and without warning Reader had become a pop star. But she was reluctant to become involved in the workings of the music industry.

"I made a conscious effort not to be part of the normal expectations of success. I was very wary of it all because I had seen what success could do to people, how it could change them. A lot of my fears were realised."

This stems partly from her need to be in control. She freely admits: "I'm very much a control freak".

Soon after Perfect, Reader became pregnant and the band split up.

A decade later she has established herself as a solo artist after forming an alliance with WEA Records and Boo Hewerdine.

She appeared at Dillon's Bookshop, St Ann's Square in Manchester yesterday to promote the album which she co-wrote and produced herself.

Angels & Electricity is all about freedom. She explained: "It's about finding space among the wires, taking time out to express yourself. Whether its time to sit in a field or whatever it is. It's about getting out of the wiring."

She is as articulate on the subject of self-expression as she is passionate about her singing.

She is happier, more confident and focused than ever - probably because she has the freedom, at last, to be truly creative.

Reader's self-esteem has always been tied-up with singing. Now she's riding on the crest of a wave and is comfortable at last with herself and with her singing.

Her obsession with music and singing goes back to her childhood when she used to play around with other kids producing their own shows and singing competitions. They would copy the hits. It was a natural progression to go on to form their own bands. She was about 14 when she played in her first gig.

She was surrounded by violence as she was growing up so her singing was her escape route from the harsh reality of growing up in Glasgow.

Eddi recalled her first gig: "We sang in front of a bunch of people in the local. We didn't tell our families. It was the middle of the afternoon and most of us should have been in school, the sun was streaming in through the windows of the smoke-filled room. It was full of people who looked like they'd been there since the night before."

When she left school Eddi sang with anyone and everyone including a variety of folk bands. But the early 80s was the height of punk and the work dried up.

"I got stuck in this factory," she explained. "Then one of my mates suggested I answer one of those daft ads in the back of Melody Maker. I remember she said make sure it was one with a box around it."

She rang from a phone box armed with a bag of full of ten pence pieces.

"I pretended I was my secretary. The ad was for the Gang Of Four and this guy asked me if I'd done this sort of thing before. So I said, oh yeah, I've played with Simple Minds, U2 and loads of others.

"The pips went and I was shoving 10ps in like mad, I don't know what this guy must have thought, but it worked.

That was Thursday. By Tuesday I was appearing on The Old Grey Whistle Test with the Gang of Four."

Before long she had appeared on Top of the Pops with the Eurythmics. She did her fair share of session and live backing singing after that.

But the music industry didn't really agree with Eddi.

She explained: "I end up putting my foot in my mouth. It felt a bit weird. I'd done a lot of singing with folk bands and we were all kind of equal. I found that in the music industry you suddenly had bosses - and the bosses were the stars.

"They told you what to do. You had to dance the way they said, dress the way they said. It didn't suit me. I'm very free about what I do. "

"I got fed up with it," she added. "I felt that a lot of the singing I was doing was really dull."

Reader can talk for hours about her aversion to the music industry machine.

She is finally comfortable about her ability as a singer, but then she has been making music for 15 years.

Her unquestionable talent and uncompromising attitude towards her music is a strong combination.

Odds on, despite her efforts to avoid mainstream popularity, the uneasy alliance between Eddi Reader and the music industry ain't over yet.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.