As David Gest prepares to bring his Legends Of Soul tour to York, he tells Charles Hutchinson about true stars, his friendship with Michael Jackson and why he just loves York.

AMERICAN music producer, concert promoter and British reality TV star David Gest believes audiences are tired of going to shows where acts are advertised with no real lead singer left.

His response is to put together David Gest’s Legends Of Soul Live Concert! for a series of 30 dates that will bring ten acts and a nine-piece band to York Barbican on Friday, February 21.

In the line-up of soul and Motown luminaries will be Dennis Edwards, the voice of Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone, leading The Temptations Review; Candi Staton; Percy Sledge; Stax Records icon Eddie Floyd; The Three Degrees’ Sheila Ferguson; Shalamar’s Jody Watley; Rose Royce’s Gwen Dickey; CeCe Peniston; Eddie Holman and Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame member Little Anthony, of Little Anthony & The Imperials, on his first UK tour at the age of 72.

Gest has mounted such shows before, including David Gest’s Legends Of Soul Spectacular, but his 2014 version lifts his soul revue to new heights with the artists having sold more than 100 million records between them.

“When I came out of the jungle, after I did I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here in 2006, I started the soul show in London and then started doing it each year and the reaction was so incredible from the fans that this time I’m going out on the road and letting people know that this tour is the real thing,” says David, dressed in black from jet-blackened hair to booted feet on his publicity drive at York Barbican.

“It’s not tribute acts. You’ll be seeing Dennis Edwards, the only lead singer of The Temptations still living. I can’t stand it when people put on those shows without the real thing, but I’ve got the real thing from the Fifties, Sixties, Seventies, Eighties and Nineties in my show.”

David Gest will be the show host to his myriad guests.

“I have fun with the audience, telling stories about my family, my upbringing in Hawaii, where my father was a fisherman with only a right leg and my mum was going to be a nun and she only had a left leg, so they called her Hoppity,” says David, who is on such a story-telling roll by now that you may want to check the facts.

“I didn’t see them after I was five when I was adopted, and I used to come to England to see my cousin Rita in Liverpool.”

But it was time to steer him back to his soul train of thought. Thoughts such as his friendship with Michael and Tito Jackson that led to his long association with the Jacksons.

“My best friend at the time was Billy Eckstine’s son, Eddie, and I got this job at 15 working for a soul newspaper. Eddie and I would go to all the clubs; I had this big Afro and beard and looked much older than I was, and I got so into soul music that it just became part of my life,” he says.

“So Eddie said, ‘Do you want to meet the Jacksons?’. This was when they were attending Walton School, a private school in Panorama City. Michael was making a giraffe in papier maché and we started talking and he introduced me to Tito.

“We started playing basketball and I then went out with La Toya [Jackson], but it was just puppy love.”

The memories roll on and on; how Michael asked David to take him to a show in Pasadena; how Michael used to buy all sorts of music memorabilia; how David now has 500,000 of those items.

“We became best friends and the friendship lasted to the day Michael died,” says David. “You know, he didn’t talk in that high voice. He was different from how he was portrayed. Let’s face it, to put up with me, he’d have to be pretty strong!”

David organised the 30th anniversary celebration in 2001, when The Jackson 5 reunited for the first time in 17 years.

“It was the last time they sang together,” he says. “It was just the most phenomenal experience, putting together 48 acts in two days for two days of shows at Madison Square Gardens. Luther Vandross. Whitney Houstion. And then the next day was 9/11.

“The shows made more than $24 million: the most money I’d made, with all the TV rights, and we did all that ourselves, just sitting and talking about ideas. When The Jackson 5 sang I Want You Back and ABC, I had tears in my eyes.”

Eleven years on, David is living in Britain and has grown to love York. “I’m buying a property here,” he says. “I love the hog roast! I first came here four years ago and I just fell in love with the city.

“When you have the Minster, all other churches fade by comparison, and when you walk through the city, it has an elite beauty, and the people are so special. I think I’d like to die here… not soon; eventually!”

He is 60, should you be wondering.

There is no better place to live than York, insists David.

“I’ve lived in New York; Beverly Hills; I still have property in Hawaii; I’ve lived in Tennessee; I lived in Claridge’s for two years, but here it’s so special because York is still a part of the past instead of just being in the present. Long after we’re all gone, Bettys will still be here,” he says.

“And I can walk around the streets. People come up but they come up with such love. I just love it.”

• David Gest’s Legends Of Soul Live Concert, York Barbican, February 1, 7.30pm. Tickets: £26 to £60 on 0844 854 2757 or yorkbarbican.co.uk