Having devoted her life to music from childhood, trailblazing singer and songwriter Joan Armatrading is celebrating 50 years since the release of her debut album Whatever’s For Us. Here, she reminisces about sticking to her guns under record label pressure at the start of her career, receiving an audience with Nelson Mandela and appearing in The Beano…
I fell in love with music when I was 12 or 13…
“My dad had a guitar and I used to love how he played Blue Moon. But he wouldn’t let me touch his guitar and would hide it so I couldn’t get to it if he wasn’t playing it. That made me want to play the guitar, but the thing that really started me off was when my mum bought a piano, just as a piece of furniture for the front room. And literally, as the piano arrived, I started writing songs. Then I got my guitar. I found it in a pawn shop for £3 and my mum said, ‘If I swap these two old prams for it, you can have it’ so that’s how I got my first guitar – and I still have it.”
My record label wanted me to change my name and the way I dressed…
“It was a very short conversation because the request was followed by ‘no’ and there was nothing else to say. And my name is one of the best names ever, so why am I going to change it? As for the dress code, I need to be me and to be comfortable.”
I always say I was born to write…
“When I started, there wasn’t anybody else for me to look at and say, ‘Oh, that is how they’re doing it’ in terms of a Black person, or even in terms of a woman. So I was just doing what I did in a very natural way. Did I experience racism in the music industry? I didn’t notice anything was there. Maybe it was, but I was just busy doing my thing. I was just getting on with it really. I can’t elaborate any more than that. I was writing how I wanted to write and being who I am.”
My name is one of the best names ever, so why am I going to change it?
For years, I wore my house key around my neck…
“I started wearing the key when I was little, because I’d have to let myself in when I came home from school and I just got used to it. I decided to stop wearing it after I made an album called The Key in 1983. I think I was 32 at that point!”
Being asked to share a stage with Bob Dylan was a big compliment…
“He obviously was and is still an incredibly famous person. It was in 1978 [at Blackbushe Aerodome] and I was still a young artist, obviously not as well known as Bob, but he liked my music. Of all the people who played that concert – myself, Eric Clapton, Graham Parker and [the band] Lake – I was the only girl. He chose that line-up, that was his gig and so I was very excited to be asked by him. He’s a phenomenal songwriter and just seemed like a really nice guy. I’ve met some great people through what I do.”
I first met Nelson Mandela while touring South Africa…
“I went to his house in 1995 and the whole atmosphere was full of love from all the people who worked for him. I thought there’d be a whole stack of other [guests] there, but it was just the two of us. He said, ‘Would you like to go into the garden?’ And I thought, ‘OK, that must be where everybody else is.’ But when we got to the garden it was still just us. It was amazing to meet him on my own, he was an incredible man. I’ve met some of the other freedom fighters and they are all very special people. They knew what they had to do to free a lot of people and in The Messenger, I sing about that. I invited The Kingdom Choir to record it with me and also to perform it when I sang it for Mr Mandela [at The London School Of Economics And Political Science in 2000]. He wasn’t that strong on his legs, but he danced the whole of the song and then gave me this massive hug at the end.”
One of my biggest thrills was starring in The Beano…
“I’ve been reading comics since I was a little girl. I would talk about it when I did interviews and there was one article where I was surrounded by comics. The Beano guys heard about it and I was invited up to [publisher] DC Thomson to meet them. The next thing I knew I was actually in the comic on the Tom, Dick & Sally page, which was wonderful! Tom, Dick and Sally said, ‘There’s a Joan Armatrading concert on the radio just about to start’, and then Sally tries to persuade her brothers that she knows me. They don’t believe her and it ends up with me giving Sally a slap-up meal while the brothers look on through the window enviously. It’s definitely a highlight. In fact, I’m looking at it this very minute, it’s up on my wall.”
