Joan Armatrading 2007

David : Hi Joan, what an honour to speak to you ! How are you doing ?

Joan : Great, actually I'm standing at the venue I am playing tonight and it’s one of those places with the stage covered, you know like Wolf trap ? 

David : Wolf trap in Virginia ? 

Joan : Yeah and I’m setting up beside these benches and you look over and it’s like this farmland, well not quite farmland but the colours are just amazing ! 

David : Where exactly are you right now? 

Joan : I am in Jacksonville, Oregon 

David : Your new album "Into The Blues" is your first all blues recording in a career that spans more than 35 years. Why was now the right time to do this project ? 

Joan : I have no idea (laughing), I thought about it for a long while... it’s like this song on the new CD called “Something’s Gotta Blow”, I was stuck on the Tube on the northern line and it was late and it was incredibly crowded and the frustrations were there and I’ve been in that situation many, many times and it’s like “why did I only decide to write that song now”? What is it that tells you, “ok, now is the time to write that song”?

David : People really seem to have taken to the new album, it's hit number 1 on the Billboard Blues Chart, and I might say is doing remarkably well at Megatunes ! Has the success of the new album taken you by surprise ? 

Joan : You know (laughing) it’s so funny, this is the first time I can say this and know the exact date. On February 13^th the recording started and it was released May 1^st in America. Now, I played shows in-between those dates I would say to the audience “This album will hit number one”. On the 9^th of May I was actually able to go out and tell the audience that it WAS number one ! One of the band members told me “Joan, all that stuff you’ve been telling the audience and now it’s all come true”.

You know as usual I wrote everything myself and recorded everything myself. I was just kind of in this state as it were, and I had this feeling it was going to be a successful album, I didn’t expect it to come in at number 1, I thought it would hit number 1 but enter the charts and slowly make it to number 1. That’s been just fantastic I think and like you said, people seem to really have taken to it. 

David : It’s almost struck a chord with people, old and new fans alike. 

Joan : They really have and I notice it on tour, I mean every tour I play new stuff and there are lots of people who have not heard the new CD and the reaction is so positive and they yell things out like “Joan, that’s so cool”! It’s just fantastic and on the notes on the CD I wrote “I hope everyone enjoys this CD as much I enjoyed making it” and so far many, many people have liked it. I mean you’re not going to please everyone. There’s going to be people who say “Ah Joan, you can’t do the blues” but if you take the majority of people, they seem to like it. 

David : It must be very gratifying for you isn’t it ? 

Joan : Oh yes, I was on this plane the other day with this chap and we were talking like “What do you do” kind of stuff and I told him about the CD and he says “Oh... an English person at number 1 on the blues charts... don’t know what I think of that” 

David : You are an incredibly eclectic artist, you have recorded albums over the years with jazz, folk or rock overtones to name a few, sometimes all within the same album, were you nervous at all about being able to pull off a convincing Blues album to your satisfaction? 

Joan : I don’t know if nervous is the right word. I know when people hear the title of the album that they might think it’s a covers album, and that’s not what I wanted to do and I knew I would have to write it in my way so I just got on with it and hoped people would take to that. I don’t know really how to do it another way. I was more excited than nervous really. I went into it really focused, every song came out of the blues, and it came as you hear it. Normally when I write, I jump around a bit, a pop song then it’s a jazz song, I like to move about normally. With the blues you can totally do that too, there is so much room within the Blues. You can have the swamp Blues or the gospel type Blues or the rock Blues... you can have all these different elements to this music, great!

It allows you to be eclectic within one genre of music. 

David : After such an illustrious career, is taking on new musical styles and themes a way of challenging yourself, to push yourself out of your comfort zone? 

Joan : Yes, I am such an eclectic person, that allows me to not be the same all the time, which is what I like and to do this, I had to transport myself to one genre but once I started and I had the inspiration, it was a real nice challenge 

David : Even though this is your first foray into making a full on Blues album, there is still a slightly different track on the album called "Baby Blue Eyes", which features a driving mandolin sound through out the song and has a definite country feel to it... can you tell us about this track? 

Joan : That track has some misunderstanding as to who’s playing the mandolin, it’s actually me. I play everything apart from the drums. When it came time to recording the mandolin, I had to go into another room and because I don’t have remote access to the computer in that room, I had to get the engineer to record it. I think that’s why people may think he played the mandolin. That song is about going somewhere and describing the place I was at. I’m being secretive can’t you tell (laughing) but it’s basically describing the place I was at. 

David : You played all the instruments on this album yourself with the exception of drums and percussion, once again was this a case of wanting to push yourself musically or was there another reason why you did it all yourself ? 

Joan : I normally always do that so I am used to it and the last CD “Lovers Speak” was the same way but I do dabble in drums so one day I will get to record my own drums too ! The drummer I have is just so good, he also played on “Lovers Speak” and I always tell them anyways how I want the drums to sound and all that anyways, but it works out quite nicely. 

David : Blues has a reputation of being associated with themes of pain, angst and suffering yet on this new album after listening to it several times, I detect that lyrically you may not agree with this assessment, that the Blues can have a very uplifting, optimistic quality to it as well... would you agree with this ? 

Joan : Absolutely ! I think the Blues is not about misery, it’s about telling a story. Of course you can have “Oh my baby left me” but it doesn’t have to be like that. As long as it’s telling a story, painting a picture and taking someone on a journey. A lot of pop and rock songs stick words in there that fit a rhythm, the Blues seems to take you to a different place and that’s the huge difference. 

David : "Deep Down" is a fun song, lyrically speaking. Is this a case of less is more, that adding more to it would take away from the message ? 

Joan : It absolutely would... exactly !  I'll tell you how that came about. In actual fact, it’s about the same guy that the song “Liza” is about.  The guy could see all the good in his woman and in this conversation he had with me he said “deep down, I really love her” and I thought it was very profound and what a great statement, nothing else needs to be said. Then I thought “what a strange thing that is to say”, like I almost have to search myself to find out...

David : Like a huge question mark...

Joan : Yeah, that’s right. So it didn’t seem like it needed anything else so I didn’t give it anything else. “Deep Down” just says it all. 

David : Well it’s a fun song for sure 

Joan : Yeah, it’s one of my favourites and actually when we were mastering it, the mastering engineer said to me “Oh Joan, you've got to take that song off the album” and I just said “No” (laughing) 

David : I know it's still early days yet but seeing that the new album has done, and continues to do so well, should we expect another Blues influenced album next or will it be another curve ball you throw at us ? 

Joan : I haven’t got a clue, I just have no clue. On this album, I was sitting in this beautiful hotel in Cardiff, in the middle of nowhere and it just came to me that this was the time and there is a song called “Play The Blues” that kind of came to me - the idea, and I didn’t write the song then. That came later but the feeling was just so strong. I just have to wait until it comes to me. I'm just as interested as you how it will turn out ! 

David : You have always maintained popularity at home in England and a loyal fan base in North America and all over the world, this is over the span of some 35 years and 18 albums.  Looking back is there a secret to your success ? Would you say your versatility plays a part in that success ? 

Joan : Yeah I think it’s a bit of everything. I’m a bit quiet in my private life. I keep that private and just let the music speak for itself, and I think that’s helped a lot. I also think that people being interested in my music, and keep being interested in my music has helped and keep on introducing new people to my music.  When you have a loyal fan base, some of those people have other interests and sometimes they fall away and if you don’t have new people coming to you then you can’t have a long career. 

David : Totally off topic but many moons ago you did guest vocals on a Queen song called "Don't Lose Your Head". I was interested to know about your experiences with the guys in Queen. 

Joan : What happened, was I was making an album... I think it was “The Key” and Queen was in the next studio and Roger Taylor came in and asked if I would fancy coming in and doing something and I hesitated and finally said “yeah... alright” and really that was it. It really was just because they were in the next studio. 

David : Joan thank you very much for talking to me, congratulations on the new album and we will be seeing you up here very soon for dates in Calgary and Edmonton.  

Joan Armatrading - Into The Blues

CD $18.99

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