THERE have been so many stories about Diana Ross's bad behaviour, it makes sense to approach a phone interview with this legendary soul diva with care.Yes, I will call her Ms Ross as directed. No, I won't stray from the list of questions that have been sent to her home in Los Angeles. Of course, I won't bring up anything about the nasty tell-all book written by Supremes bandmate Mary Wilson or Ross's arrest for drink driving in 2002.
As it turned out there was no real need to be alert or alarmed. Ms Ross wasn't cranky, rude or even watching the clock.
"I wonder why my phone keeps ringing?" she ask playfully, our interview having gone over the allotted time.
She was happy to chat and who wouldn't want to keep talking to a woman described by record producer Peter Asher as the "spirit, power and history of American soul music condensed into a voice of understated elegance"? If her singing on stage is a fraction as good as her phone manner, her concerts must be sublime.
Ms Ross doesn't need to give interviews often. After a 40-year career, nine Top 10 albums and a multitude of hits both as a solo artist and with those fabulous soul sisters, The Supremes, her reputation as a musical artist of note means she needs little introduction to anyone who has listened to music in the past half century.
True, many of her biggest hits and stellar moments were in the 1960s and 1970s, but Ross has proved adept at keeping pace with the times, taking note of emerging young female singers such as Beyonce Knowles who all want to be like her, briefly swapping soul for disco in the 1970s and teaming up with pop acts such as Westlife.
These smart musical moves, as well as an uncanny ability at 62 to sound and look like a woman half her age, have kept Ross in the picture.
The odd angry headline has also kept her on the pop culture radar. Seven years ago she created controversy at the MTV Music Awards when she grabbed the breast of rapper Lil'Kim during an awards presentation. Bizarrely, Ross was in trouble again later that year for a similar misdemeanour when she grabbed the breast of a security guard whom she felt had frisked her improperly at Heathrow Airport. The photographs of Ross taken at that time jar with the woman on the end of the phone who is talking happily about her new album that is all about love and her belief that her children are a vital part of her life.
Ross's album, her first in six years, is called I Love You and it indicates she is perhaps in a better place in her life now than four years ago when she was pulled over by Arizona police for driving on the wrong side of the lane to a video store.
The songs, written by her favourites such as John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Burt Bacharach, are "affirmations of love", says Ross.
A personal choice on the album is the Lennon McCartney song, I Will. "I had to work hard to find that song," she says. "I saw Paul McCartney perform the song here in Los Angeles and when I was looking around the entire arena there was one little girl on the shoulders of her father she could not have been more than 10 and she was singing every word. I thought I don't even remember that song I have to find it. It was such a personal affirmation of love."
Talk of love brings Ross to her children. The second of six children, she has five of her own, three girls and two boys. She has had two husbands, the second, Arne Naess Jr, who fathered her two sons, was killed while mountain climbing in 2003.
All her children are involved in show business either as singers, actors or entrepreneurs.
"It's in the genes," Ross says, "and I've been very happy to pass it on to them."
"It's in the genes," Ross says, "and I've been very happy to pass it on to them."
The eldest, Rhonda, was born in the 1970s when Ross was busy with her career across two continents and making movies as well as hit songs. However, her career has never really stopped and last year Ross was reported as saying her fame had a negative effect on all her children's lives and stopped her from doing all the things she wanted to do with them.
"How did I manage having children? Well, that's a funny question," she laughs. "You mean, how did I manage with my career?
"It actually does require a lot of organisational skills and planning because it is quite hard figuring out how you are going to get balance in your life. My priorities were always in the right place as far as what was most important to me in my life and family is at the top. You have to really work on it and have really good mentors and people around you who will support you.
"We used to live in Connecticut when the kids were younger and I tried really hard to have a normal life, to raise my children so they could go to school and live in a neighbourhood and ride their bicycles. I fought for that little piece of normality."
Looking at Ross in her glamorous costumes at her 2004 Wembley concerts in Britain, it's hard to imagine her in slippers and dressing gown getting the children ready for school. During her career, she has sung lead vocals on at least one hit for 33 consecutive years between 1964 and 1996, including songs such as Where Did Our Love Go? and Ain't No Mountain High Enough. In 1976 she was named by Billboard magazine as the female entertainer of the 20th century. In 1993 The Guinness Book of World Records pronounced her the most successful female artist because of her 18 No.1 singles.
Are such accolades a boost or a burden? "It is wonderful. It says more about the music than about me. Or maybe it says more about the audience. I have made music which has touched the lives of so many people. But you continue to want excellence and to try and create excellence in all you do. I just try being the best Diana Ross I know how to be."
Diana Ross, Sanctuary Cove, November 4.
