Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading (born 9 December 1950) is an English singer, songwriter, and guitarist.
Career
Joan Armatrading was born in Basseterre, Saint Kitts; she moved with her family to Birmingham, England, in 1947. She began writing songs at the age of 14. Her first job was working at Rabone Chesterman (makers of fine engineering tools), in Hockley, Birmingham. She was sacked from this job because she insisted on bringing her guitar to work and playing during tea breaks. In the early 1970s, she moved to London to perform in a repertory production of Hair. There she met Pam Nestor, a lyricist and they worked together on the album Whatever's for Us, released on the Cube label in 1972. This debut LP saw Joan perform all of the vocals, write all of the music and play an array of instruments. Joan Armatrading has been writing both lyrics and music since the age of 14 and it is her lyrics along with the lyrics of Pam Nestor that appear on this release. The album credits the lyrics of Pam Nestor however Cube,considered Armatrading to be the more likely star material. These events produced a tension which broke up this musical partnership. A period of inactivity for Armatrading followed, while she extracted herself from her contract with Cube Records.It was only in 1975 that she was free to sign with A&M and issued Back to the Night, which was promoted on tour with a six-piece jazz-pop group called The Movies. Joan credited up-and-coming UK singer Elkie Brooks on the sleeve notes as she had cooked for Joan and the band in the studio while making the album, which was produced by Elkie's then-husband Pete Gage. A major publicity relaunch in 1976 and the involvement of producer Glyn Johns propelled her next album, Joan Armatrading, into one of the top best sellers of the year, and spawned the hit single "Love and Affection". The album mixed acoustic work with jazz-influenced material, and this style was retained for the 1977 follow-up Show Some Emotion, which was also produced by Glyn Johns as was 1978's To the Limit. These albums included songs which continue to be staples of Armatrading's live shows, including "Willow", "Down to Zero" and "Kissin' and a Huggin". A live album titled Steppin' Out in 1979 showcased her well-honed stage act.
She gained a new audience following her writing and performing "The Flight of the Wild Geese", which was used during the opening and end titles for the 1976 war film The Wild Geese.
In 1980 Armatrading radically revised her playing style and released Me, Myself, I, a harder pop-oriented album produced by Richard Gottehrer, who had also worked on albums by Blondie and Robert Johnson. The same pop style was also evident on the 1981 album Walk under Ladders and 1983's The Key, which produced a hit in the single "Drop the Pilot".
She made a "vocal cameo" appearance on the 1986 Queen album A Kind of Magic during the song "Don't Lose Your Head".
She has mixed eclectic musical styles over decades of recording and performing. She has scored several UK hit singles, the biggest of which were "Love & Affection", "Me Myself I" and "Drop the Pilot". Generally, her music is mostly pop with forays into rock, folk, jazz, and even reggae. Her popularity is primarily as an album artist and as a singer-songwriter.
Armatrading's latest album, Into the Blues, was released in the United States on 1 May 2007, and she is the first UK female artist to debut at #1 on Billboard blues chart. Into the Blues was nominated for a Grammy and makes Joan the first female UK artist to be Grammy nominated in the Blues category. The album, which Armatrading calls "the CD I’ve been promising myself to write for a long time," has a strong blues-rock feel. Armatrading has retrained herself in the classic lead Chicago Blues style rather than the fast semi-acoustic chording which typified her earlier guitar work, and now does all guitar work for the band on the album and stage.