IT WAS always going to be difficult for Aled Jones to find someone to duet with him on the song he is most closely associated with - Walking in the Air. So he did it himself.
When it came to putting together a greatest hits album last year, Aled knew he had to include the song but he wanted to add a little twist to it.
So Howard Blake, the composer who wrote the much loved music to The Snowman, added a baritone part to the song and Aled added it to the classic version he sung as a young boy.
As any ardent pub quizzer knows, the version that accompanied the original film was in fact sung by chorister Peter Auty, but Aled found fame with his 1985 version, which proved to be a hit single.
On his latest tour - which sees him perform at the Broadway Theatre in Peterborough next Thursday - he is performing the song for the first time since his boyhood chorister days.
"My boy's voice starts the concert and I come on and sing the adult part," he tells scene. "When I did it in Darlington the other day, I could just about see the front row and their mouths were aghast.
"It was on the Best Ofalbum so I thought, why not?
. It's a song that will forever be associated with me and I have no problem with it - if I did I'd be rocking gently in The Priory about now."
The resurgent popularity of classical music which has taken the music industry by storm in recent years can be traced back to Aled's early days, as well as Pavarotti's Nessun Dorma, and has made stars of the likes of Charlotte Church, Russell Watson, Katherine Jenkins and Bryn Terfel.
But having laid the foundations of classical crossover music, Aled is keen to push the boundaries of his art a little further.
"When I first started singing as a kid there was only me and Pavarotti who released classical albums, and now every day there's some new release coming out. I found that everyone was bringing out albums with stuff that I'd already sung, and I just wanted to move the goal posts.
As long as it's good music then I don't care what it is really.
"There's plenty of music out there that isn't necessarily a hymn or a piece of classical music but it has that classic quality.
"I listen to all kinds of music - my iPod's a scary place to be.
It's got everything from AC/DC to Charles Aznavour.
"I've changed the line-up of the band. I've always had a string quartet and a keyboard player with me but this time, instead of a harp, I've got an acoustic guitar and I will be trying out some numbers that will be on my new album.
"It's going to be a totally different feel, something more like Norah Jones. This is probably the album I'm most proud of because it's me singing from the heart. It's quite spiritual and uplifting.
"
But his musical talents took a slightly stranger turn recently when he found himself playing drums for a Led Zeppelin tribute band in front of a baying pub crowd of rock fans.
It was all part of new TV show Play it Again- currently on BBC One on Sundays - in which Aled joins a small band of celebrities including Robert Winston, Frank Skinner, Bill Oddie and Jo Brand. The show follows them as they each try to learn a different musical instrument from scratch.
"It was a laugh-and-a-half," he says. "My teacher was a guy from New York who was a fabulous inspiration, but I was pretty crap.
"My first test was to play drums in front of my fellow students at the college and I just about passed that.
My second test was playing with a Led Zeppelin tribute band in a grotty pub in Camden.
"I may have played the Royal Albert Hall but this was the most nervous I've ever been in my life. As I was walking on, everyone was chanting Walking in the Airand taking the mickey out of me but as I finished playing Rock and Rollby Led Zeppelin they were all shouting 'Jonesy, Jonesy, Jonesy!
'.
"My final test was playing for Chris de Burgh in Düsseldorf in front of 15,000 of his fans. I was shaking like a leaf.
" Aled says the experience has helped him look at music from a different angle; he has stuck at the lessons and carried on his new found passion for drumming. But the same cannot be said for his hoofing after a stint on Strictly Come Dancingin 2004, where he finished fourth.
"The most pleasurable experience of my life was burning my ballroom dancing shoes after the show had finished," he laughs.
"While you're doing it, you do get into it and more than anything, I loved the sport aspect of it. I was getting fit and having fun. But realistically, I just hid behind a Russian for 10 weeks, I was rubbish and eventually I got found out.
"
■ Aled Jones is at the Broadway Theatre in Peterborough on Thursday April 5 at 7.30pm.
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