On the Road Again

Lesson one on how to be a transatlantic Musical Sensation: be a strange, obsessive child. From the age of five, Dido Armstrong would come home from school each day, go to her room and practice — piano, violin, recorder, the odd bit of "harmony and composition" — for six or seven hours. "It was my thing, what I liked doing," says the British singer, now 29, with just the slightest defensive edge. "My mum was always like, 'You are very strange.'"But so successful. While Dido's first album, No Angel, only made its European debut in October, it has been a sleeper hit in the U.S., clawing its way into the top 30 after a June 1999 release. Critics may not know what to call her style — Dido herself admits that she's not sure how to describe it — but they gush over her eclecticism, her lush balladry and her clear, resonant voice. Even America's favorite musical bad boy, rapper Eminem, couldn't resist her siren song, interweaving the moody Thankyou (yes, one word) into Stan, his piece about the madness of an obsessed fan.

Early on, Dido had few fans, let alone obsessed ones. She thought herself record-worthy but says that older brother Rollo, 32, a music producer who's also in the band Faithless, "spent two years telling me to get out and sort of stop bothering him." Ironically, Rollo often touted Dido's demo as a model of something signable but didn't think to get his sister a record deal until someone at his Cheeky label asked, "So why aren't we signing her?" They did. Big brother became a key creative partner, and as the No Angel project progressed, it took on a the-more-the-merrier feel. Friends became sounding boards and co-writers on a record that Dido says is "just all me and my mates and my brother."

They were also pretty much the only ones who heard No Angel in the U.K. When Cheeky went on the block in 1998, Dido delayed the album's home release. "If a record company's being sold, they're not going to do a good job with your record," she explains. In the meantime, she had signed with U.S. label Arista, which wanted to send her stateside. Just three months, they said, so off she went.

The American detour ended up devouring the better part of two years, taking Dido to radio station lobbies ("Releasing a single is just about how many stations you can get to play it"), through the Deep South in the sauna season ("In Nashville, these white lights appeared in front of my eyes in the middle of a song and I thought, 'It's the end! I'm going to die singing!'") and to the depths of boredom in interview after interview, because of questions like, "Is Dido your real name?" (The answer is yes, and the answer to your next question is, "My parents are just odd.")

Now she's ready to come home. Inane questioning aside, America has been great, "brilliant" in her North Londonese. But the pop-star-in-a-hotel routine is wearing thin. "It's depressing," Dido says. "At the [New York] hotel I stay in, I'm on hugging terms with the bellmen." She misses little things about life at home, like British driving, not to mention her friends and her longtime love, a London lawyer named Bob.

Europe's getting ready for her homecoming, too. Stan's heavy airplay has prompted a stream of "Oh my gosh, I heard you on the radio!" calls from Mum, who has also become the biggest middle-aged fan in England of "that sweet Eminem who did that nice song." And No Angel is selling well thanks to strong word-of-mouth. "You make your record and slowly people hear it," she explains. "I want them to discover it."

Those who fall for No Angel's soft, introspective focus will have to wait a while for a second dose of Dido. Writing and recording are on the agenda, but not until fall. In the meantime, she's going on tour. Her big discovery in the New World? Onstage confidence. Gone is the nervous wreck who spewed epithets at those in her pre-show path. "I'd say the most evil things," she says. "I wanted people to hear my music, but it was a real battle for me to actually get up there." Not anymore. She is taking the stage happily, starting with an eight-date swing through Europe in late January.

At her London gigs, Dido will have a chance to sing a Thankyou to friends and family. Mum and Dad, who endured that decade of plonking and screeching from upstairs, will be there, as will Rollo, the skeptic-turned-collaborator. They'll hear her crowd-pleasing mix of wry humor and intimate song. And perhaps they'll also get a knowing look from onstage that says, "It was worth it, wasn't it?" We can answer for them. Oh, yes.