Barbara Ruth Dickson OBE (born 27 September 1947) is a Scottish singer and actress whose hits include "I Know Him So Well" (a chart-topping duet with Elaine Paige), "Answer Me" and "January February". Dickson has placed fifteen albums on the UK Albums Chart from 1977 to date, and had a number of hit singles, including four which reached the top 20 on the UK Singles Chart. The Scotsman newspaper has described her as Scotland's best-selling female singer in terms of the numbers of hit chart singles and albums she has achieved in the UK since 1976.

She is also a two-time Olivier Award-winning actress, with roles including Viv Nicholson in the musical Spend Spend Spend, and was the original Mrs. Johnstone in Willy Russell's long-running musical Blood Brothers. On television she starred as Anita Braithwaite in Band of Gold.

Dickson was born in Dunfermline and went to Woodmill High School. She spent her early childhood in Rosyth before her family moved to Dunfermline in the 1950s. Her father was a cook on a tugboat at Rosyth Dockyard and her mother Ruth Malley of Irish descent was from Liverpool. She went to Pitcorthie Primary School when she moved to Dunfermline.

Dickson's singing career started in folk clubs around her native Fife in 1964. Her first commercial recording was in 1968. Her early work included albums with Archie Fisher, the first of which, The Fate O' Charlie, a collection of songs from the Jacobite rebellions, was released in 1969. Her first solo album was Do Right Woman in 1970.

She became a well-known face on the British folk circuit of the late 1960s and early 1970s, but changed her career course after meeting Willy Russell. He was at that time a young student running a folk club in Liverpool. He showed Dickson the first draft of what later became the award-winning musical John, Paul, George, Ringo ... and Bert and asked her to perform the music. The combination of his writing, the cast (including Antony Sher, Bernard Hill and Trevor Eve, who were unknown at the time) and Dickson's idiosyncratic interpretation of Beatles songs made the show highly successful.

The show's co-producer, Robert Stigwood, signed Dickson to his record label, RSO Records, for whom she recorded the album Answer Me, arranged and produced by Junior Campbell, the title track becoming a top 10 hit in 1976. John, Paul, George, Ringo … and Bert also led to her guest residency on The Two Ronnies, which brought Dickson's singing to the attention of more than ten million BBC Television viewers every week.

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice also spotted Dickson in John, Paul, George, Ringo … and Bert, and invited her to record "Another Suitcase in Another Hall" from their new musical Evita, which became her second hit in 1977. She contributed two tracks to Scouse the Mouse a children's album (1977) with Ringo Starr and others. During the late 1970s, Dickson also contributed backing vocals to two best-selling albums by the Scottish singer-songwriter Gerry Rafferty: City to City (1978) and Night Owl (1979). Other solo hits, including "Caravan Song" and "January February", followed for Dickson in 1980.

An abridged version of the song "Best of Friends", sung by Dickson, was used as the closing theme for Andy Robson, an ITV children's television series broadcast during 1982 and 1983. It was never released commercially until 2021 when the full version featured on the Special Edition release of Dickson's album Heartbeats.^{[citation needed]}