Joan Armatrading    (9 Dec 1950)
née Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading

Strong fan base, a truly eclectic style, so many firsts, international fame and amazing music that other musicians are happy to cover! Not bad for a pioneering woman from tiny St. Kitts.

"Born on the island of St. Kitts, British singer/songwriter Joan Armatrading was her country's first black woman to make commercial inroads into her chosen genre, spicing her take on folk with bits of soul and reggae, and has had a remarkably long, consistent career."

"Emigrating to England in 1958, Armatrading met lyricist Pam Nestor in a touring production of Hair, and the two began collaborating on material later featured on Armatrading's 1972 debut, Whatever's for Us. The two ended their partnership afterward, and Armatrading resurfaced in 1975 with Back to the Night. Featuring former members of Fairport Convention, Joan Armatrading catapulted the singer into the U.K. Top 20 and produced her only Top Ten single, "Love and Affection.""

"Armatrading's subsequent albums sold well in the U.K. to her newly established fan base but only respectably in the U.S., where it took her until 1980 to have a real hit (the all-electric Me Myself I). The Key also did quite well, but Armatrading remained largely a cult artist with a small but devoted following in America, never quite achieving the stardom she had in Britain. ~Steve Huey, All Music Guide ¹  

Joan "has mixed eclectic musical styles over decades of recording and performing. She has scored several UK hit singles, the biggest of which were "Love & Affection", "Me Myself I" and "Drop the Pilot". Generally, her music is mostly pop with forays into rock, folk, jazz, and even reggae. Her popularity is primarily as an album artist and as a singer-songwriter."

"Armatrading's latest album, Into the Blues, was released in the United States on May 1, 2007, and Joan is currently touring to promote the record, which made her the first UK artist to debut at #1 on Billboard blues chart. The album, which Armatrading calls "the CD I’ve been promising myself to write for a long time," has a strong blues-rock feel. Armatrading has retrained herself in the classic lead Chicago Blues style rather than the fast semi-acoustic chording which typified her earlier guitar work, and now does all guitar work for the band on the album and stage."

Genre: Pop, Rock, Folk, Reggae

Sources:  (1)  (2)