"Songs of yours have been my total life," declares Dawn, a blonde woman of 25 in a crushed-velvet suit. Amid the hubbub of a meet-the-fans night out and album playback at Newcastle's Swallow Hotel, she's shouting this intimacy in the profferred left ear of David Coverdale.

  The artist, sheathed in elegant suiting, looks abashed. When you're 47 and launching the latest comeback of a dollar-drenched but rollercoaster career, these little things mean a lot - far more, in fact, that the promotional value of these serial soirées (free booze and a decent buffet) with groups of local-paper competition winners.
  A moment later, he's showing Dawn family snaps: partner Cynthia and eight-month-old Jasper.
  "He looks like my bairn", exclaims Dawn.
  "When he came out he had these huge genitals like a Gucci bag", boasts the laddish dad cupping his large hands around his own notorious trouser reptile.
  Fearless now, Dawn asks about his ill-fated late-80s marriage to Tawny Kitaen, co-star of several steamy Whitesnake videos.
  "A few million dollars later", he mock-sighs. "Yorkshire lads shouldn't marry American actresses".
  "Are you getting married again?", Dawn enquires.
  "I haven't been asked. Perhaps she'd say, Fuck off", laughs Coverdale. "No, it's so good this time. I'm frightened to death it'll go wrong if we change. We've been together seven years now, which is longer than I've lasted with anyone....apart from Adrian Vandenburg (Whitesnake guitarist)".

  Of course, his male fans are concerned with band line-ups rather than emotional matters. But they're reassured to learn that he's still pals with Jimmy Page, oppo in his previous short-lived project, and grunt manly approval when he promises that the new Whitesnake album, Restless Heart, represents a return to R&B roots.
  "I've had enough of the Tarzan impressions, I wanna sing. Less strain on the old Calvins".

  Born in Saltburn, near Middlesbrough, he exchanges regional reminscence with Darren, who lives five minutes away from a Coverdale aunt in Normanby, and flame-dyed redhead Alison who knows the favourite Teesside haunts of his youth, McCoy's Bistro and the Purple Onion. Of course, they'd like to see him settle back home, but he's not over-enthusiastic, admitting he moved to Nevada, at Lake Tahoe, because there are no state taxes on his earnings, and then "fell in love with the place. It's breathtaking - postcards from God on a daily basis".
  There are rumours about his possible part in a Clement/La Frenais movie - "Still Crazy dot dot dot, it's called" - with Jimmy Nail, Billy Connolly and Kristin Scott-Thomas.
  "I'll take it if I can get into her pants", he galumphs. "No, I'm seeing the director later this week and I'm really nervous".
  He says a hearty "Champion!" to the lads, he tingles the women's toes by calling them "flower" in dulcet Teesside baritone. He's a paragon of easy social grace. He remembers names. He asks questions. Where do they come from? Their families? Their travels? Moving on from one woman who has lived in America and holidayed in Africa he says, "Glad you've seen the world. It's a cracker isn't it?"

  Finally, after nearly two hours of quality fan interface fit to challenge the "street" presumptions of contenders 20 years younger and a tenth as rich, Coverdale has spent time with every one of the 50 or so people in the room. He turns around calling farewells. Redheaded Alison delays him long enough to get her left breast autographed. Dawn has him sign her upper arm so that she can get it tatooed the following morning.
  Watching him go, Bridie, wearing a neat suit and navel ring, is cast adrift on a sea of adoration.

  "When I was ten, Come & Get It was the first LP I bought. When Whitesnake played the City Hall the guitarist Eric Sykes - no, not Eric, John - he threw a plectrum to me and I've got it framed on my bedroom wall. And, after all those years fantasising, to actually meet David Coverdale in the flesh....the only downer is that my husband's here."
  "I said there'd be a divorce if I wasn't", chortles her sturdy spouse, plainly relieved that David Coverdale has, indeed, left the building.