Armatrading has only had a few significant hits, mostly in Britain only, mainly "Love and Affection," "My Myself I" and "Drop the Pilot." But she's been a steady success since the 1970s, and is still going as I write this in 2022. However, her most commercially successful records came between 1976 and 1983. So 1981 is a pretty good time for a live concert from her.
The concert is unreleased, but it is up to the usual high BBC standards of sound quality. The only gripe I have with it is that it doesn't include my favorite song from her, "Drop the Pilot," which was a hit in 1983. (Fun fact: the chorus of that song mentions the very obscure word "mahout," which is what one calls a person who rides and trains an elephant!) So I found a soundboard bootleg of that song and another popular one from 1983, "(I Love It When You) Call Me Names," and added those two to the end.
The concert was a little short at only 58 minutes, compared to the usual concert length of about an hour an a half. With the two extra songs, that stretches it to an hour and seven minutes.
01 I'm Lucky (Joan Armatrading)
02 Down to Zero (Joan Armatrading)
03 talk (Joan Armatrading)
04 I Wanna Hold You (Joan Armatrading)
05 Rosie (Joan Armatrading)
06 Cool Blue Stole My Heart (Joan Armatrading)
07 Love and Affection (Joan Armatrading)
08 talk (Joan Armatrading)
09 Eating the Bear (Joan Armatrading)
10 talk (Joan Armatrading)
11 When I Get It Right (Joan Armatrading)
12 I Can't Lie to Myself (Joan Armatrading)
13 Me Myself I (Joan Armatrading)
14 talk (Joan Armatrading)
15 The Weakness in Me (Joan Armatrading)
16 Tall in the Saddle (Joan Armatrading)
17 [I Love It When You] Call Me Names (Joan Armatrading)
18 Drop the Pilot (Joan Armatrading)
The cover art comes from an appearance on the Midnight Special TV show in late 1980.
Down to Zero, The Weakness in Me... she has so many great songs.
ReplyDeleteI never liked Drop the Pilot ("simple-minded pop") until I saw Joan do it live, with a full band. They blew the roof off. Absolutely stunning.
Thank you!