Joan Armatrading - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: Sight and Sound, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 11-5-1977

Sigh. Yet another BBC album renumbering. Please be patient. I'm trying to get all this fixing done in one big push. In Joan Armatrading's case, I was aware of this 1977 concert, but I decided not to post it mainly because the sound quality wasn't that good. However, it turns out I had an inferior copy that also had fewer songs. I recently found a much better version, so I'm posting it after all.

The three other Armatrading BBC albums I've posted already come after this one chronologically, so they all needed to be renumbered. Here are the links for those:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/11/joan-armatrading-bbc-in-concert.html

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/04/joan-armatrading-bbc-sessions-volume-2.html

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/01/joan-armatrading-bbc-sessions-volume-3.html

I tend to think of Armatrading as someone who made it big in the 1980s, but she began performing music in public in the late 1960s, and her first album was released in 1972. In 1976, she had her first hit with "Love and Affection." It only made the singles chart in Britain. But in the U.S. she was popular enough to appear on the "Saturday Night Live" TV show in 1977. 

This unreleased concert was part of BBC's "Sight and Sound" series, which meant it was broadcast on TV. (Thus the sight as well as the sound.) I believe the first song wasn't included, as it isn't on most bootleg versions of this concert, and it makes the whole concert longer than an hour. But I did find one version with it included.

By the way, I've found a big amount of BBC concerts I'd missed recently, which as led to this spate of renumbering. In addition to this one and the ones I've already posted, I've found BBC concerts she did in 1985, 1999, and 2007. If you want me to post any and all of them, let me know. I'll do it if there's enough interest. I also found that she did no less than eight sessions with BBC DJ John Peel from 1972 to 1976. I would have liked to make an album out of that, but it seems all of that has been lost except for a couple of songs from a 1975 session and all of a 1976 session. That's not enough for an album.

This album is an hour and two minutes long.

01 talk (Joan Armatrading)
02 Help Yourself (Joan Armatrading)
03 talk (Joan Armatrading)
04 Never Is Too Late (Joan Armatrading)
05 talk (Joan Armatrading)
06 Show Some Emotion (Joan Armatrading)
07 talk (Joan Armatrading)
08 Willow (Joan Armatrading)
09 talk (Joan Armatrading)
10 Opportunity (Joan Armatrading)
11 talk (Joan Armatrading)
12 Won't You Come on Home (Joan Armatrading)
13 talk (Joan Armatrading)
14 Steppin' Out (Joan Armatrading)
15 Love and Affection (Joan Armatrading)
16 talk (Joan Armatrading)
17 Cool Blue Stole My Heart (Joan Armatrading)
18 talk (Joan Armatrading)
19 Mama Mercy (Joan Armatrading)
20 talk (Joan Armatrading)
21 Kissin' and a Huggin' (Joan Armatrading)
22 Tall in the Saddle (Joan Armatrading)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/bG8Si2F7

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/wgqR6SaxNnuX8yE/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took of the video of this exact concert. I used the Krea AI program to improve the image quality.