Project 1001: Joan Armatrading by Joan Armatrading

I am not in love but I'm open to persuasion

Joan Armatrading is an artist I’ve always been aware of but never listened to. What a dum dum I am! This is a wonderful album and is going to be in my personal canon going forward. I will also spend some time exploring the rest of her catalogue starting with the 1980 album Me Myself I, which I’ve started and the first couple of songs are outstanding. My Rating:

Here is an ad, which I find quite interesting, for the album that appeared in the August 7, 1976 issue of Billboard.

What a great tagline! Later in that issue they wrote, “This thoroughly diverse and immensely enjoyable LP shows strong influences of jazz, blues, pop, soul and folk,” and that Armatrading “delivers lyrically touching and introspective ballads.”¹

As a Black, English, female singer-songwriter in the 1970s, Joan Armatrading did not fit prepackaged norms of the music industry. She became a success on her own terms. “Armatrading’s success lies in the peculiar vision that informs her work. Her 1976 hit ‘Love And Affection’ on her historic self-titled album conveys tension, vulnerability, pride, and loneliness, all in one song”²

Sounds newspaper gave the album five out of five stars

So delicately melodic and yet still with the personal quality of speech, like a friend, and that is definitely not an acquaintance with whom you share nothing more than surface smiles, but a friend who knows your strengths and vulnerability and in return doesn't conceal her own.³

Pitchfork described Joan Armatrading as “a brilliant display of musicianship from a songwriter attuned to the mysteries of desire and heartbreak.”⁴

In 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Tim Sheridan wrote: 

While her earlier efforts had shown certain promise, Armatrading’s songwriting skill came to full flower here, set off by a keen eye for detail, as well as a playful sense of humor.⁵

Enjoy and listen without prejudice. Cheers!

Prime version of the playlist: 146. Joan Armatrading by Joan Armatrading

Full video playlist with some good live performances: You're Welcome 146; Joan Armatrading by Joan Armatrading

Charts

• Peak on Billboard 200 album chart: #67⁶
• Singles on Billboard Hot 100 chart: n/a
• RIAA certification: n/a

Released in July of 1976. Here’s what else was happening:

Pop Culture

• Number one song: “Silly Love Songs” by Wings⁷
• Number one album: Wings at the Speed of Sound by Wings⁸
• Number one movie: The Omen by Richard Donner⁹
• Most watched TV programs: All in the Family; Laverne & Shirley; Rich Man, Poor Man; Maude; The Bionic Woman; Phyllis, Sanford and Son; The Six Million Dollar Man¹⁰
• NYT bestseller, fiction: Trinity by Leon Uris¹¹
• NYT bestseller, non-fiction: The Final Days, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein¹²

Other albums released that month

• 15 Big Ones by The Beach Boys
• The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein by Parliament
• I've Got You by Gloria Gaynor
• The Originals by Kiss
• Anthology by The Jackson 5
• Best of BTO (So Far) by Bachman–Turner Overdrive
• Dance by Pure Prairie League
• More Than Ever by Blood, Sweat & Tears
• Music, Music by Helen Reddy
• My Love Affair with Trains by Merle Haggard
• Surreal Thing by Kris Kristofferson¹³

Sport

• Jul 2 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: American Chris Evert beats Evonne Goolagong Cawley of Australia 6-3, 4-6, 8-6 for second of 3 Wimbledon singles titles.
• Jul 3 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Sweden's Björn Borg beats Ilie Năstase of Romania 6-4, 6-2, 9-7 for the first of 5 straight Wimbledon titles.
• Jul 10 British Open Men's Golf, Royal Birkdale GC: American Johnny Miller wins his only Open championship, 6 strokes clear of Seve Ballesteros and Jack Nicklaus; Miller's second and last major title.
• Jul 11 US Open Women's Golf, Rolling Green GC: JoAnne Carner wins in a playoff with Sandra Palmer.
• Jul 13 47th All Star Baseball Game: NL wins 7-1 at Veterans Stadium, Philadelphia. MVP: George Foster (Cincinnati Reds).
• Jul 17 21st modern Olympic games opens in Montreal: 25 African teams (later rising to 33 nations) boycott the games due to New Zealand playing rugby in apartheid South Africa.
• Jul 17 Walter Alston becomes the fifth MLB manager to win 2,000 games as Los Angeles Dodgers defeat visiting Chicago Cubs, 5-2.
• Jul 18 63rd Tour de France won by Lucien Van Impe of Belgium.
• Jul 18 Nadia Comăneci (14) becomes the first gymnast in Olympic Games history to score a perfect 10 score (doing so 7 times) at Montreal Games.
• Jul 20 Hank Aaron hits 755th and last home run off Angels Dick Drago.
• Jul 30 Future TV personality ('Keeping Up with the Kardashians') and transgender figure, Bruce Jenner (now Caitlin Jenner) sets WR 8,618 points to win decathlon gold at Montreal Olympics.
• Jul 31 East German runner Waldemar Cierpinski beats American Frank Shorter by 50 seconds to win the Olympic Games marathon in 2:09:55 in Montreal.

Notable Births

• Jul 3 Wanderlei Silva, Brazilian mixed martial artist, born in Curitiba, Brazil.
• Jul 9 Fred Savage, American actor (The Wonder Years), born in Chicago, Illinois.
• Jul 10 Adrian Grenier, American actor and producer (Entourage), born in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
• Jul 10 Elijah Blue Allman, American musician (Deadsy), son of Cher and Gregg Allman, born in Beverly Hills, California.
• Jul 12 Anna Friel, British actress (Pushing Daisies), born in Rochdale, Greater Manchester.
• Jul 12 Kyrsten Sinema, American politician (Senator-D-Arizona 2019-), born in Tucson, Arizona.
• Jul 15 Diane Kruger, German actress and fashion model (Troy, Inglorious Bastards), born in Algermissen, West Germany
• Jul 17 Luke Bryan, American country singer ("I'll Stay Me"), and television personality (American Idol, 2018- ), born in Leesburg, Georgia.
• Jul 19 Benedict Cumberbatch, British actor (12 Years a Slave; Sherlock; Dr. Strange; The Power of the Dog), born in London, England.¹⁴

Historical Events

• Jul 2 Formal reunification of North and South Vietnam.
• Jul 2 US Supreme Court rules death penalty not inherently cruel or unusual.
• Jul 3 Brian Wilson performs with the Beach Boys after his 12 year stage absence, at Anaheim Stadium in California.
• Jul 4 Israel launches hostage rescue mission of 106 Air France crew and passengers held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda by pro-Palestinian hijackers. Three hostages die along with all the hijackers, numerous Ugandan soldiers and Yonatan Netanyahu, an Israeli soldier.
• Jul 7 119 women joined the Corps of Cadets, establishing the first class of women in the US Military Academy at West Point.
• Jul 11 In pre-game promo at Atlanta County Stadium, 34 couples wed at home plate followed by Championship Wrestling "Headlocks & Wedlocks".
• Jul 12 1st "Family Feud" game show debuts on ABC hosted by Richard Dawson.
• Jul 14 Democratic Convention in NYC nominates former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter for president and US Senator Walter Mondale, from Minnesota, for vice president.
• Jul 17 Indonesian President Suharto annexes East Timor.
• Jul 19 Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal is created.
• Jul 20 US Viking 1 lands on Mars at Chryse Planitia, 1st Martian landing.
• Jul 20 Vietnam War: The US military completes its troop withdrawal from Thailand.
• Jul 21 1st outbreak of "Legionnaire's Disease" kills 29 in Philadelphia.
• Jul 21 Christopher Ewart-Biggs, British Ambassador to the Republic of Ireland, and his secretary Judith Cook are assassinated by a bomb planted by the Provisional IRA in his car in Dublin.
• Jul 27 Former Beatle John Lennon is granted a green card for permanent residence in US.
• Jul 28 Tangshan Earthquake, 7.6 in magnitude, kills over 300,000 in northern China, the largest loss of life from an earthquake in the 20th century.
• Jul 29 In New York City, the "Son of Sam" kills one person and seriously wounds another in first of a series of attacks.
• Jul 29 Seychelles gains independence.¹⁵

Notable Deaths

• Jul 9 Tom Yawkey, American Baseball HOF executive (owner Boston Red Sox 1933-76), dies from leukemia at 73.
• Jul 21 Earle Combs, American Baseball HOF center fielder (9 × World Series 1927, 28, 32, 36–39, 41, 43; New York Yankees), dies at 77.
• Jul 23 Wilhelmina Von Bremen, American 4X100 relay sprinter (Olympic gold 1932), dies at 64.
• Jul 24 Leo Shuken, American film music composer and arranger (Stagecoach; The Fabulous Dorseys; The Unsinkable Molly Brown), dies at 69.¹⁶

1. Billboard, August 7, 1976, p. 68

2. O’Brien, Lucy, She Bop : the Definitive History of Women in Popular Music, p. 146.

3. https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/joan-armatrading-ijoan-armatradingi-am

4. https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/joan-armatrading-joan-armatrading/

5. Sheridan, Tim; 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die; ed. by Robert Dimery; p. 363.

6. https://elpee.jp/artist/Joan%20Armatrading/

7. https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100/1976-07-03/

8. https://www.billboard.com/charts/billboard-200/1976-07-03/

9. https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl1567000065/weekend/

10. http://www.thetvratingsguide.com/2020/02/1975-76-ratings-history.html

11. https://www.hawes.com/1976/1976-06-27.pdf

12. Ibid.

13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_in_music#Albums_released

14. https://www.onthisday.com/birthdays/date/1976/july

15. https://www.onthisday.com/events/date/1976/july

16. https://www.onthisday.com/deaths/date/1976/july