Joe Jackson plays York for the first time in his long career. CHARLES HUTCHINSON tries to find out more from this reluctant interviewee.

JOE Jackson readily admits he is not the most enthusiastic interviewee.

"When the first question is, 'tell us about your new album, Joe, you know they haven't bothered to listen to it," says the peppery English singer-songwriter, with a characteristic crunch, on the line from New York City.

In the words of Joe himself, you better look sharp when the chance comes - after weeks of email exchanges with his tour manager - to discuss his new live show: a night of individual sets by improvising string quartet Ethel, Jackson and American songwriting sorcerer Todd Rundgren that culminates in an encore flourish where all three perform together.

The British segment of the tour starts in his home city of Portsmouth on Monday and arrives at the Grand Opera House on Thursday for Joe's first performance in York, 26 years on from his first hit, Is She Really Going Out With Him?.

So, with no new album on the block, there should be no problem with the first big question. Here goes. Joe, how come you and Todd are doing these shows together? "Everyone asks me that and it's boring," he says. Oh dear...

...Thankfully he means the answer is boring, not the question. "You want amusing anecdotes, but there's no great story about how it came about. I'm just glad it did," he says.

"Ethel had played on my Night And Day II album in 2000, and with me and Todd, it involves lots of tedious names you've never heard of! Let's just say it was a blind date!"

That blind date was more a mnage a trois, because Jackson and Rundgren shared a stage with Ethel one summer evening last August, closing out a memorable night at the Delacorte Theater in New York City's Central Park.

"It worked so well that we had agents and promoters besieging us. They were sleeping on my doorstep. Terrible!" says Joe, laughing at his recollection.

Joe, Todd and Ethel have taken their show on the road in America this year, and eight British shows over the next week will lead into five weeks of touring Germany, Holland, France, Belgium, Spain and Italy.

"Joe, you are a bigger name in Britain than Todd, so..." the question is curtailed. "If that is true," interjects Joe. "It's hard for me to be objective because, to me, Todd is a legend and many years ago everyone who started a band revered Todd, and I think that's still the case, and it's certainly not a competition between us."

Back to the question. Would the running order swap for Britain with Todd coming on before Joe to do the likes of Love Of The Common Man, I Saw The Light and Bang The Drum? "No, I'll still play my solo set before Todd, then we play together at the end. That's partly because of my respect for Todd and his seniority over me Joe is 50, Todd 56, and partly because he plays louder than me and it works better this way."

A DVD of Joe and Todd's New Jersey show will be released on Todd's label after the tour, and whatever Joe does next it will not include another reunion for the original Joe Jackson Band, which reconvened in 2002 after two decades apart to make Volume 4.

"It was great to get back together again: the deciding factor was that I felt we had a great album in us and we had enough songs to make a great album, and if we didn't have that, I wouldn't have done it. I didn't just want to do it for nostalgia," he says.

"I didn't particularly rate our third album, Beat Crazy - even Beethoven did a few duds - but people expected us to come back after two years. Instead it was 20, and it was a one-off. The stake has been driven into the vampire's heart!"

Joe believes "people have made too much" of his reputation for often changing tack in a career that has embraced New Wave rock, reggae, minimalist jazz funk, piano ballads, instrumental albums, film soundtracks and Jumpin Jive, his "musical vacation" in Forties swing in 1981. "That reputation reduces me to a cartoon, and I certainly don't change for change's sake," he says.

"Critics take Jumpin' Jive much more seriously than I do, and it gets debated as if it was some great, meaningful thing, when it was just a bit of fun, something off the wall. I've always been eclectic, and some things I do mean more than others."

He had planned to add a Disney movie score to that credits' list. Instead, he will appear in only one scene playing piano in The Greatest Game Ever Played, performing Hello Hello Who's Your Lady Friend, a vintage song from 1913 that also features in the Jackson and Rundgren shows.

"I was originally supposed to do the whole score but it didn't work out. They drove me nuts, so I walked out because I just wasn't the right person," he says. "That experience with Disney has taught me I have to be careful what projects I work on. I can't deal with that thing of six men telling me they want me to write something sappy."

You wouldn't disagree with him, would you?

Joe Jackson & Todd Rundgren, featuring Ethel, Grand Opera House, York, Thursday, 7.30pm. Tickets: £25 on 0870 606 3595.

Updated: 16:42 Thursday, May 26, 2005