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Solidly entrenched as one of the bright lights on the UK music scene, then a self-imposed break for two long years. Jon-Andre Holley meets the refreshed singer who is back and anxious to reclaim her crown.

Yup, it's getting to that time of year again. No not that time of year, but the period during which record companies have a fit of pre-X'mas release-mania and throw out just about everything they ever had - big guns and all! Music industry demographics have traditionally shown that the most fervent en masse acquisition of albums, CD's and cassettes is during the hazy, leaf-strewn weeks of autumn. Thus, especially in these times of unprecedented low music sales, major comebacks are high on the priority list.

Step forward one Dina Carroll - the lady who began her career as a sixteen-year-old performer on Masquerade's pre-house hit "Set It Off" - and her brand new eponymously titled album. The same lady who, at the beginning of the decade, fronted Quartz's big hit cover version of the old Carole King ode to the divorce courts, "It's Too Late".

But of course, as Diana Ross once reliably informed us, if you've got the pre-requisite drive and ambition, as well as that elusive star quality, "...it's never too late." After "Set It Off", one ill-advised A&R man actually had the temerity to write the impressionable young teenager off to her face.

It was then that Ms. Carroll began to trust in her own talents and temperament. The result? 1994's huge selling "So Close" set - an album which catapulted Dina to the very top echelon of female performers. But still she had to endure many a negative comment from hardliners whose comments seemed like puritan condemnation to a woman who just wanted to sing...

"She's not soul" was the carp, "not real black music" the censure. All this and yet inferior vocalists were simultaneously being embraced by those same people simply because they were putting their limited larynxes to acceptable production formulae.

Unperturbed, Carroll, not so much soldiered, but slammed along. Hit after hit followed from "Special Kind Of Love" to "Don't Be A Stranger", from "Ain't No Man" to "Express" - all demonstrating Ms. Carroll's vocal dexterity and deceptively powerful delivery.

Then... disaster. 1996's follow-up to her chart-busting début bore an unfortunate portent within its title. "Only Human" was the confession and the star proved to be just that as the pressures of producing a sophomore set to match the achievements of the début proved too much. On top of that Dina contracted a hearing disability which necessitated an operation.

As you may have gathered, however, throughout this brief appraisal of her history, Dina Carroll is nothing if not resilient and following a two-year hiatus from the business she is back with a new album which is being talked about as her best record ever. Those same puritans can even be found espousing the qualities of "our Dina" as if they had been doing so all their music-critical lives.

The phlegmatic Dina Carroll opens our hotel room conversation by shrugging off such types...

"What can I do about people like that?" she asks rhetorically. Give 'em a brilliant record is the answer. A record which consists of notable musical achievements such as her version of Dusty Springfield's "Son Of A Preacher Man", a disco anthem like "Good To Me" and a couple of dance numbers with the potential of "One, Two, Three" and "Livin' For The Weekend".

"I went to the States, to L.A., to record three tracks with Rhett Lawrence. Things were so cool between us that we ended up doing the whole lot..." informs Dina with the echo of that old "I bought the company" Remington lady-shave advert. "He's a really chilled out guy to work with..." continues Dina, "which is good for me because I need three or four days to get a vocal right in the studio."

I mention a recent live showcase at Whitfield Studios in which she got it right from the off...

"Yeah, but that's live and it's completely different. I'm just not comfortable with a studio environment. You've normally got the engineer and a few others just laughing and giggling which doesn't so much put you off as create an artificial atmosphere. A studio can be so sterile whereas live shows are exciting. It's like a two-way relationship between you and the audience who are right there in your face. With Rhett it was so different and he made the whole experience just so easy for me."

Whilst not exactly swooning, Dina could well be mistaken for a love struck Scarlett O'Hara as she espouses the virtue of her particular "Rhett". What's more it seems that frankly my dear, he did give a damn and that is what counted in his favour.

"We recorded the entire album in his studio which is in his bungalow. It was so relaxed and prior to recording he took time out to study my vocal tone and its nuances. That is the true worth of a producer - to make it easy for the artist..."

Talking of trans-Atlantic flitting between the U.K. and the U.S.A., it transpires that Dina considers herself to be very much a true Brit.

"Most definitely. My mother is from over here and I've lived here for a while now. I was actually born in England before going to live in the States when I was two. I then came back and eventually settled in America during my teens. Eventually I came back to spend my adult life over here."

And her biggest musical ambition...?

"There's a part of me which would love to jack it all in and concentrate on doing real smoky jazz clubs - you know, seedy, dodgy, serious places. It's an option, a sweet one."

"Don't get me wrong - it's great to have a career in singing: it's a constant challenge and it's a constant test too to see if I can rise above the pressures. But I may yet do that club thing one day, who knows...?"