Radio LBB: Essential Joan Armatrading

‘The most extraordinary talent I have ever worked with’ this has been said many times by Glyn Johns, producer/engineer for The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles and the Beatles about Joan Armatrading CBE.

Does Joan get the credit she deserves for her contribution to British Music? Maybe she does, after all she is a Grammy nominated, Brit nominated, Ivor Novello winning artist….but I don’t hear her namechecked in the same way by up and coming songwriters as much as say Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, or Nick Drake for example. 

Fusing folk/rock/reggae and blues her music sometimes can almost pierce your heart the lyrics resonate so much, and it can’t do any harm for me to highlight these wonderful songs once again!

For anyone wishing to check out her own personal journey from St Kitts and Nevis, to Birmingham and then the world I recommend the BBC4 documentary ‘Joan Armatrading: Me Myself I’.

Here are a few of my favourite Joan tunes…