Staying Fresh

For over 40 years British singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading has been blazing a trail through the world of contemporary music. At once, one gets the impression that Armatrading is an austere woman, speaking with a certain sense of caution and expressing irritation when questioned about something she doesn't agree with.

This cautious attitude, mixed with her prodigious musical talent, means it comes as no surprise that recent years have seen her working autonomously when it comes to making records. Her most recent release, Starlight, which is out in Australia next week, saw her take charge in a big way.

“I mean, it's me doing everything, I write, arrange, record, engineer, produce… so if I don't like it then we're in trouble,” she laughs when asked about her feelings on her most recent piece of work.

“I've always written and arranged all of my songs; when I write I always hear all of the things I'd like to hear going on behind it. I hear bass and keyboards and drums and violins and whatever. Arranging is a part of writing for me.”

Armatrading is very firm when speaking about the creative process starting and ending with her; she not interested in creative collaboration with her musicians when it comes to songwriting.

“When I go to a studio with musicians, I go in with a complete song. Nobody contributes to how a song is, nobody can say, 'Let's put a chorus here' or 'Let's make the melody like this' or 'Let's move this verse here' – nobody can do that. Only me. The song is written and nobody can change it. I go in with a song, it's not a bit of a song, it's not an idea for a song – it's a song.”

Starlight sees Armatrading take on something of a pop-jazz element to her eclectic sound, which is rather different to the past couple of albums we've heard from the artist. She agrees and says that it is utterly by design.

“I've always been eclectic. This is my twentieth CD, so if you listen to all the CDs you'll hear lots of different things – jazz, rock, blues, pop – all in the one CD. But in 2007 I decided that I would kind of stick to a genre for that CD and I wanted to do a trilogy; in 2007 I did Into The Blues, which obviously was blues-influenced songs, in 2010 I did This Charming Life, which was rock-influenced songs and in 2012 I did Starlight, which is jazz-influenced songs. I'm really happy with that, but I don't know what I'm going to do next.”

Whatever it is, it will be exciting. You can be sure that Armatrading isn't looking to tread water any time soon.

“It's just a matter of keeping myself interested and seeing what I can do,” she says. “I just turned sixty-two, but because I'm an older woman isn't to say that I can't stay fresh.”

One very striking element of Armatrading's aforementioned trilogy of albums is the focus on the guitar. Add to this the fact that Armatrading recently hosted a BBC series based on that instrument and one begins to wonder if maybe she is a little bit obsessed with the classic contemporary instrument.

“I love the guitar, I love playing the guitar. I think the reason I like it so much is because I actually think it's a very difficult instrument to play, I don't think it's a very easy thing to get hold of at all. The reason I keep going with it is I'm trying to get as good as I can. I mean, I know I'm good, but I'm trying to get really good.”

Joan Armatrading will be playing the following dates: