singer; songwriter
Personal Information
Born on December 9, 1950, in Basseterre, St. Kitts (Caribbean Islands); moved to Birmingham, England, 1958.
Education: Open University, B.A., 2001.
Career
Vocalist and songwriter. Performed in reggae group around Birmingham as teenager; appeared in British production of musical Hair; signed to A&M; released debut album, Whatever's for Us, 1973; released breakthrough album, Joan Armatrading, 1976; released album Me, Myself & I, 1980; reached top 40 in U.S. and top ten in Britain; released The Key, 1983; recordings and tours, 1980s-90s; moved to RCA label, 1995; released online single "The Messenger," a tribute to Nelson Mandela, 2001.
Life's Work
In the 1990s and beyond, female singer-songwriters formed an important segment of the pop marketplace, both critically and commercially. Such artists as Tracy Chapman and Melissa Etheridge sold millions of recordings thanks to a stylistic blend that was rooted in folk music, with its emphasis on insightful lyrics, but also incorporated blues, jazz, rock, and dashes of various international styles. That stylistic blend was partly the creation of Joan Armatrading, an Afro-British songwriter and vocalist who was in many ways ahead of her time. "I know I've been an incredible influence on many people and I've played a big part in all the stuff that happens now," Armatrading told the Los Angeles Times. "... But it's almost like people are in denial. If it's something that has touched you and been a big influence, you should say so."
Armatrading was born on December 9, 1950, on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, but her family moved to the factory town of Birmingham, England, when she was seven. A shy youngster, she mastered the piano and guitar on her own and began writing songs. Her first experiences as a performer came when she and her boyfriend joined a proto-reggae Jamaican group that performed around Birmingham, but Armatrading had wide musical interests and showed little desire to pursue a purely Caribbean sound in her music. Jamaican music was at that time a largely male-dominated music. Armatrading drifted out of music in her late teens and took an office job.
She was drawn back to music when she went with a friend who wanted to audition for a role in the British production of Hair, a notorious hippie-era rock musical that included an onstage nude scene. The friend was cut, but Armatrading got a chorus part--and refused to shed her clothes for the nude scene. Joining forces with another Caribbean-born songwriter named Pam Nestor, Armatrading returned to songwriting and went in search of a record deal. She was signed to the Cube label in 1972--a significant breakthrough, for Cube was distributed in the United States by the hugely successful A&M label.
Armatrading's first two albums, Whatever's for Us (1973) and Back to the Night (1975) sold poorly but attracted some industry attention, and the consistent British hitmaker Glyn Johns was tabbed to produce her next recording. That album, 1976's Joan Armatrading, proved to be a career maker. The album spawned a single, "Love and Affection," which rose into the Top 10 on British charts. The Los Angeles Times called the ballad "alternately caressing and smoldering." Joan Armatrading won enthusiastic critical reviews on both sides of the Atlantic, giving rise to a small but devoted coterie of Armatrading fans.
That group of fans has never been large; only two of Armatrading's albums, 1980's Me, Myself, and I and The Key (1983), reached the Top 40 in the United States, and even in her British homeland, where she was more of a commercial force, the top levels of the charts eluded her. Part of the reason was that Armatrading never settled into an image or a musical formula that pop music's star-making machinery could build on. If an album reached a moderate level of success, Armatrading was just as likely to strike out in a new direction with the next one as to produce more work in the same vein. Her partnership with Glyn Johns endured for only a few albums after Joan Armatrading, and she has since worked with a great variety of producers and musicians.
That changeability, however, endeared Armatrading to her legion of fans, who would consistently buy each new Armatrading release and who insured that Armatrading would consistently create new material for the better part of two decades. Armatrading turned back to her Caribbean roots on 1981's Walk Under Ladders, which featured the hitmaking Jamaican rhythm team of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare. She featured leading rock stars as guests on various albums, such as Mark Knopfler of the group Dire Straits on The Shouting Stage (1988). All these influences were grafted onto a core of what a Rolling Stone reviewer (quoted in Contemporary Authors) called "folk-jazz musings"--songs with serious lyrics, on a variety of topics, performed in a more rhythm-oriented and vocally improvisatory style than that of pure folk music.
Though they did not top the charts, Armatrading's albums sold consistently over extended periods of time as new fans discovered her music. She has been credited with twenty gold records for sales of over 500,000 copies each. Armatrading continued to record regularly until 1995, the year she released What's Inside. Appearing on the RCA label in a departure from A&M, where she had remained since the beginning of her career, What's Inside was called by Billboard magazine "the most personal, delicate, and introspective album" of Armatrading's career. That album kicked off a new worldwide concert tour by the singer, who consistently sold out much larger concert halls than the volume of her recording sales would suggest.
Part of Armatrading's longevity was due to her avoidance of the excesses of the pop lifestyle. "I'm a very quiet person," she told People. "I don't smoke. I don't drink. I don't go to clubs." She remained stoic about the moderate dimensions of her album sales. "Sure, I'd like commercial success," she said in the same interview. "Tons. But I can't change my style or the style of my music just to get it. It has to be with what I do."
Independent as ever, she struck out in new directions in the late 1990s. Armatrading spearheaded an album called Lullabies with a Difference in 1998; soliciting lullabies from many of the musicians with whom she has enjoyed close relationships, including Tina Turner, the Cranberries, and Mark Knopfler. Armatrading turned over profits from the album to the children's charity PACES. Armatrading earned her bachelor's degree with honors from Britain's Open University in 2001. She told the London Independent that although she liked a music history course she had taken, "I didn't enjoy the analytical side of music theory at all."
Honored with two Grammy nominations for Best Female Vocalist earlier in her career, Armatrading received two more important awards at the turn of the century--even though it had been several years since she had released a full-length album of her own. In 1999 she was named one of the 100 most influential women in rock music by the television video channel VH1, and in 2001 she became a Member of the Order of the British Empire in a ceremony conducted by future king Prince Charles. Her most recent recording at this writing, "The Messenger," was a tribute to former South African President Nelson Mandela; it was made available as a download from Armatrading's website.
Awards
Two Grammy award nominations; named to list of 100 most influential women in rock music, VH1, 1999; became Member of the Order of the British Empire, 2001.
Works
Selected discography
- Whatever's for Us, Metro, 1973.
- Back to the Night, A&M, 1975.
- Joan Armatrading, A&M, 1976.
- Show Some Emotion, A&M, 1977.
- To the Limit, A&M, 1978.
- Me, Myself & I, A&M, 1980.
- Walk Under Ladders, A&M, 1981.
- The Key, A&M, 1983.
- Track Record, A&M, 1983.
- Secret Secrets, A&M, 1985.
- Sleight of Hand, A&M, 1986.
- Hearts & Flowers, A&M, 1990.
- The Very Best of Joan Armatrading, Polydor, 1991.
- Square the Circle, A&M, 1992.
- Greatest Hits, A&M, 1996.
- 20th-Century Masters: The Millennium Collection, 2000.
Further Reading
Books
- Contemporary Musicians, volume 4, Gale, 1990.
- Larkin, Colin, ed., The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Muze UK, 1998.
- Billboard, June 17, 1995, p. 14.
- The Independent (London, England), September 4, 2001, p. Education-3.
- Los Angeles Times, August 4, 1999, p. F1.
- People, December 11, 1995, p. 35.
- The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), October 17, 2001, p. C2.
- All Music Guide, http://allmusic.com.
- Joan Armatrading homepage, http://joanarmatrading.com (November 15, 2001).
- Associated Press, http://wire.ap.org, (October 16, 2001).
- Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2001; reproduced in Biography Resource Center, Gale, 2001.
— James M. Manheim
