Joan Armatrading - Live at Asylum Chapel (Contains Signed Insert)

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Before you played “Kissin’ and A Huggin'”, you set us up for the next song after that and said, “First, ‘Kissin’ and A Huggin” … and then watch me get excited”. I was so curious to see what song was gonna make you excited, and it was “Drop the Pilot”. It excited me that you were excited to play it. There's no planning for that. You literally can't plan for that. You can't say, ‘Well, I'm going to be the best in the world and sell out every single stadium'. Since 1986, she has been producing herself in the studio and since 2003 been playing almost all instruments on her records.

Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge. I recently watched the new animated lyric video for “Natural Rhythm”. The animation is so vibrant, playful, and witty. I’d love to know about the concept behind the animation. Of course, the livestream was a fantastic way to experience some of the new songs on Consequences. I loved seeing you dance around to “Natural Rhythm”. It’s impossible not to move to that song. In thinking of the record, I’d love to know more about the interplay between the bass and the drums on that song. I decided not to tour, to do any extensive touring after 2018, but when I did the album, I really liked the album and I thought it would be great to do a show, having the new songs, and do a show in the way that I do, which is old and new songs. I’m really glad I did it because we really had a great time. The reception for the concert has been great. Anybody who’s seen it has seemed to absolutely love it, so I’m hoping you were one of those! [laughs]

We really gelled as a band. It was wonderful. The way we rehearsed was we all were in our houses. I used a thing called Jamulus. It’s really good because it allows for that to happen so that you’re in sync. I wanted us to be as if we were in the room together, so I found Jamulus. Every now and again you’ll get a little bit out of sync or a little bit of noise or whatever but in essence, we were just in the same room and it worked great. All of the rehearsals were done like that. We ended up three days in that hall. Really, the three days were for the cameras to get themselves set up on the first day and the second day. On the third day, we did the show.

laughs] I’ll own up to it being recorded. The place that we were at, the internet access was not great. We would have been stopping and starting every two seconds. I couldn’t put that on people. It’s too worrying. I have heard too many scary stories of people doing “live” livestreams and it’s going horribly wrong. [laughs] I didn’t want to put myself through that thing. Of course, we played live and treated it as a live show. It was fantastic. We really enjoyed it.I love listening to other people do it. It's wonderful. It's really interesting. But again, you need to do what makes you feel really good.” She also tells me about Mark Knopfler, frontman of Dire Straits, who wrote one of their biggest hits, Money For Nothing, after a throwaway exchange with a shop clerk. At 15 she left school and worked in the office at the Rabone Chesterman factory, a company who made spirit levels and rules. At 16 she performed live in Birmingham for the first time.

I thought to myself, ‘What got them to the shouting stage that they are actually in public giving us this performance?' She was seven when she moved to Brookfields, then a district of Birmingham, to join her parents, who had come over a few years earlier. I want the songs to complement each other as they go through. You try not to have something where you think, That’s really jarring next to that. You want them to complement each other as they’re going along. As I do on all my tours, I spend a lot of time working out the setlist and just making sure that I get, as best I can, the right song next to the right song. I just try to make it sound as good as I possibly can and have people feel entertained and just really enjoy the experience. I have to say, the song that excited me during the livestream was “Mama Mercy”. You could have heard me shout “Yes!” all the way from New York. I’ve always wondered what was the driving force behind that song when you wrote it? I’m very often writing about love and emotions and how people connect to each other,” says Joan Armatrading. Indeed, the acclaimed singer-songwriter is known for exploring different dimensions of love while giving listeners new language to convey their most intimate thoughts and feelings. Her boundless gift for articulating the joy and complexities of relationships once again informs her latest set, Consequences (2021). The album marks her 22nd release on the eve of celebrating her 50th anniversary as a recording artist next year.Baltin, Steve (6 July 2021). "Q&A: Joan Armatrading On 'Consequences,' Songwriting And More". Forbes . Retrieved 26 December 2021. I’m quite good at singing the arrangements. I’d heard an interview with Wynton Marsalis and he said exactly the same thing. He said when he writes he can hear the arrangements so that’s kind of like that. I knew that I wanted it to be very rhythmic, and drums were the way to go, really. That’s where I started. I didn’t start with, Is it going to be on the piano or the guitar? I started with, What’s the rhythm of this? Then I worked on the drums. Knowing what you want in the arrangements, things will suggest themselves to you as you go along. Unlike many artists, the singer-songwriter behind timeless songs such as Drop The Pilot and Love & Affection has achieved longevity through consistency and gentle evolution. Because this is a live album, Armatrading cannot play all the instruments, but she does bring together a group of very talented musicians, namely: Jennifer Maidman (Bass), Paul Stewart (Drums), Alex Lee Richards (Keyboards), Jamie Anderson (Saxophone). This band works as a tight unit and brings new life to the music. It is clearly Armatrading’s show, but she allows her band to demonstrate their own individual talents as well.