Joan Armatrading would “stop being an artist” if she didn’t move with the times.
The legendary singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has just put out her 13th studio album, ‘How Did This Happen And What Does It Now Mean’, and as with all her songs, the 73-year-old musician has drawn inspiration from her daily observations.
Some of the things she has witnessed that inspired her include the innocent tale of a girl discussing discovering olives for the first time to the more serious nature of an aggressive young man who was threatening to kill people, the latter of which is the subject of the album’s track ‘I’m Not Moving’.
Joan told Classic Rock magazine: “I write from observation of what’s around me, and that hasn’t changed since day one. I think: ‘What’s it like to be in that person’s shoes?’ Situations that inspire me are things like when I was on the train recently and there was a group of girls aged about fifteen, sixteen, and one of them was super-excited because she’d just discovered olives (laughs].
She was telling her friends how wonderful olives were. I just thought: ‘That’s what youth is, the joy of discovery.’
“Another story is seeing a couple in love, whispering to each other, and things seem meaningful and important. What they’re probably saying is: ‘What d’you want for tea?’ Different ways of describing moments, that’s what I like to get into.”
It’s also key to Joan’s artistry that she makes songs that sound current.
When the writer noted that the track ’25 Kisses’ has a modern pop sound, she replied: “Well that’s right because I’m alive in 2024, like I was alive in 1976 and did what was happening then. I can’t do 1976 now, I have to reflect on where we are and live in this age, else I might as well stop being an artist.”
The ‘Love and Affection’ hitmaker is also on the ball when it comes to the latest technology in music production.
She said: “I started writing at age twelve, thirteen, and as soon as any new technology came in, I was on it. I went from two-track [recordings to four, eight, sixteen, twenty-four… and I would engineer myself.
“Then from 1986 I started self-producing. I’ve never had to play catch-up; I’ve always been there when technology moves.”