Ex-Five Star singer Deniece Pearson goes solo with Butlins date

She is also playing a number of dates including September 29 at Butlins Bognor Regis plus, on September 30, a 5 Star 40th Anniversary Special at Pizza Express Live.

Formed in 1983 Five Star comprised siblings Stedman, Lorraine, Deniece, Doris and Delroy Pearson. Between 1985 and 1988, Five Star had four top-20 albums and 15 top-40 singles in the UK. They started young.

“I started when I was still at school,” Deniece says: “I had to bring a note from the headmistress to get time off school. We did the Russell Harty show. He was amazing. I did Wogan. I loved Wogan and we did the Lenny Henry show and Saturday Superstore and Top of The Pops. We got together when I was about 14 and a half or 15 and I was just about to go into the sixth form which I didn't. What I did was way more interesting. Music had always been my passion. My brother was 13 or 14 and we were doing the clubs. It was maybe eight or nine months in the clubs and Billy Ocean was on the circuit. It was a great time. A big thing for us was when Tony Blackburn was playing one of our records and he said ‘Listen out for these guys! They're going to be huge!’ We were also on Pebble Mill at One and that was brilliant. That was our first TV performance and we got the record deal after that. Another group had pulled out so Pebble Mill called my dad. It was meant to be, for sure. I do believe in fate.”

Success was just a natural next step: “Growing up in a musical household we would listen to the Jacksons and a lot of Motown artists. Daddy was in the business and it just came as second nature. But I do think it does help when you've got brothers and sisters on the stage as well. It was really enjoyable. We did rehearsals and we knew exactly what we had to do. We rehearsed all the dance moves and we got the costumes ready and everybody knew what was expected. We knew what to do. We were so professional. It was great.”

The group was together probably five years at the most, including two big tours: “It feels like it was just yesterday. But I'm now stepping out on my own, doing what I should have done 22 years ago. I took time out to have my family and then went back and forth into the group. We were living in Los Angeles. I got married and divorced out there and then I came back and I did theatre and then I did an album and I took a five or six year break.”But now Deniece is really going it alone, with a solo album due out next year: “It's really coming together, I keep telling everybody. People keep asking what kind of music it is, whether it is pop or R&B but I would say it's an eclectic collection, the things that are coming up in my mind. Reggae tunes keep coming to me. I'm working with heaven and they're sending me down all these beautiful songs.”