1996
Joan Armatrading
Festival Theatre
Adelaide
Murray Bramwell
There are few singer/songwriters as singular as Joan Armatrading. Over seventeen albums she has not only put a patent on her lilting vocal, she has consistently explored themes where most other lyricists fear to tread. While she can write perky tunes with the best of them, it is her investigations into the telltale heart which have made her an audience favourite. She writes grown-up pop: about jealousy and betrayal, about women who love too much, about showing some emotion and putting some self-esteem back into me, myself, I.
Joan Armatrading’s songs charted the pulse of the women’s movement – Back to the Night and the subsequent self-titled album were drums that many marched to. Not that they were especially heavy on doctrine. Rather, in the ambiguity of gender and the focus on the complexities of relationship they subverted the stereotypes of romantic love. And she has continued to make raids on the inarticulate and inexpressible, as the excellent 1988 album, The Shouting Stage, attests.
Back touring in Australia for the first time since then, Armatrading is full of surprises. She has a cracking eight piece band -including a violinist and cellist- and her current album What’s Inside, her first for new label BMG, is full of riches. Opening with I Can Walk Under Ladders, the singer has the audience in her thrall from the first. Dressed in stylish basic black, with her spiky hair at shoulder length, Joan Armatrading is as self-possessed as ever. The band -led by Simon Baisley on guitar, Gary Spacey-Foote on tenor sax and Natalio Faingold on keyboards begin to construct a hard, jazzy sound which gains ever more assurance as the night progresses.
When Joan Armatrading takes up one of her battery of Fenders and Gibsons we are reminded that, even now, few women play electric guitar with such an air of forthright emancipation. The first section of the show is devoted to the classic works, performed without introduction. Ladders, Down to Zero, Let’s Go Dancing, Love and Affection.
Then for some unchained melody, Armatrading brings on cellist Laura Fairhurst and violinist Prabjote Osahn on to play an acoustic set from the new album. Opening with Merchant of Love, nicely garnished by Faingold’s piano, the blend of strings and voice is well-judged. Everyday Boy and the more upbeat, Back on the Road, follow. Shapes and Sizes, recorded on the album with the Kronos Quartet, has some splendid violin flourishes from Osahn while Fairhurst’s honeyed cello lines harmonise with Armatrading’s playful vocal.
Trouble, a gentle tribute to the singer’s mother, and In Your Eyes complete what Armatrading calls “the sitting down part”. On their feet for Drop the Pilot, the band goes into full cry in a hard funk re-reading of Kissin’ and A Huggin’. The baton passes from Baisley’s fluid guitar to Spacey-Foote’s spirited sax and Jeremy Meek’s solo on six-string bass. The ensemble playing is first class as the band swings into a fast, beaty version of Show Some Emotion. Closing the set with a rocking version of Me Myself I, Joan Armatrading shows that all three of her selves are sparking. For the encore, only the lambent strains of Willow could cap such a night. Joan Armatrading is stepping out again, and it’s great to see.
30/1/96
The Australian, February 2, 1996, p.8.