Joan Armatrading

interview/G G
PO
GIG OF THE MONTH Joan rmatrading
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The Pavilions, Plymouth
For audiophiles, Joan
Armatrading’s 1976 recording of
‘Love And Affection’ has long been
considered a benchmark track. Few
other songs, they’ll insist, challenge
hi-fi equipment across so broad a
dynamic range. Three and a half
decades later, Armatrading’s vocal
range may no longer blow your
socks off, but she can still sing with
a passion and intensity that’ll leave
them dangling around your ankles
– which, for her fans at least, is just
as well. They might be a devoted,
middle-aged, mannerly bunch, but
they know what they want. ‘Give
us the old ones, Joan. Take us back,’
came a voice from the audience,
early in the show. And so she did,
but not before demonstrating that
she remains a dazzlingly gifted
and energetic musician who is
not about to settle for a role as her
own covers artist.
Little surprise, then, that her
new album, This Charming Life,
was given a selective airing,
though the audience was never
deprived of a nostalgia fix for long.
There were occasional electric
rock thumpers (‘Something’s
Gotta Blow’, ‘Love, Love, Love’, ‘Best
Dress On’); there were the aching,
soulful classics (‘All The Way From
America’, ‘Weakness In Me’, ‘Love
And Affection’); there was a feast
of consummate musicianship
(such as when Spencer Cozens’
fluid, bluesy keyboards on ‘Tall
In The Saddle’ came close to
upstaging Armatrading’s assured,
Knopfleresque guitar work).
More than enough, one would
think, to up the heat in the
auditorium. Yet despite isolated
outbreaks of rediscovered zest,
the audience remained politely
seated and curiously static. It
took an encore and the tender
expressiveness of ‘Willow’ to coax
a pocket of sentimental fans to
their feet and sway, arms in the
air (doubtless having absentmindedly reached for the Zippo
they ceased to carry 25 years
ago). But by the time she closed
with ‘Drop The Pilot’, a good third
of the audience was standing
and moving, if a little stiffly.
Perhaps not in time to the music
(or anything else, come to that),
but nobody seemed to notice, or
much less care. She had played
them the old ones, and taken
them back.
Noel Harvey