My Interview With Joan Armatrading

I'm not retiring. I turn 65 in December, so that's why it's the last major world tour as opposed to the last tour ever.

During her four decades in music Joan Armatrading MBE has written classic singles including Love And Affection, Drop The Pilot and Me Myself And I, and recorded a total of 18 albums.

In 1996 she received an Ivor Novello award for an outstanding song collection. 

She doesn't plan on stopping anytime soon.

"During this tour I would have had two birthdays," laughs the Caribbean-born Birmingham-raised singer-songwriter.

"All of my tours have been very long and they tend to be almost uninterrupted. I don't think I need to be on the road for 18 months or a year.

"Any subsequent tours the longest they'll be is a month, so I do want people to understand that I'm not retiring."

For this tour Joan chose to perform in small cities, like Chichester, as she wanted ti experience places that she had not played in before.

Although she will be singing and playing herself in this retrospective show she is not scared about performing solo.

"It would be quite unusual not to get nervous but it's not scary," she says.

"I know about being on my own- I'm on my own when I write all of my songs.

"But I'm still nervous even if I'm with the band just because people have turned up. You worry about pleasing the audience."

The three-time Grammy nominated star's voice has been described by the Guardian as "timeless" and the emotion in her songs often brings the audience to tears.

"I find it quite easy to stay connected to the song because the songs are written from something real and music is very powerful," she says.

"The songs are important to the audience listening; you can see people clutching each other as the emotion is very real for them.

"We're kind of feeding off each other.

"I'm making sure that I do a good job and they're making sure that they enjoy the song and everything connects, we prop each other up."

Joan takes inspiration from the people she sees around her to write her songs.

The Shouting Stage, the title track of her 60,000=selling 1988 album, was written after she had witnessed a couple arguing in a restaurant in Australia.

"The man stormed out and the woman was crying," she says. "I was wondering what got them to the shouting stage."

One of the most shocking moments of Joan's career was when she was about to go onstage and a lighting rig toppled over into the audience.

She said: "I was in America and, you know, in the old days the lighting was on a thing that we call a lighting tree. So there were lights on a pole, the lights on top of the pole. So it looked like a tree. And I was literally about to come on stage when this toppled over into the audience."

The aftermath displayed the dedication her fans felt towards her.

"I remember one girl had blood running down her leg and I had to persuade her to go to hospital because she didn't want to miss the show," she says.

"It was quite traumatic but it shows you how many people want to see the show."

* Joan Armatrading is playing at the Chichester Festival Theatre, Oaklands Park, Friday, November 20.