Day Zero Trivia Quiz

Answer: Piano

Joan was born in the West Indies, in St. Kitts, in 1950. Her parents moved to Birmingham in England when she was three, though Joan stayed behind and was cared for by her grandmother. She joined her parents four years later. Her mother had a piano in the house, which she held purely as a piece of furniture.

It fascinated the young Armatrading and she soon started teaching herself on the machine. Eventually her mother traded in a couple of prams for a guitar for her daughter and Joan never looked back. By age fourteen she was writing her own songs and playing with local bands.

Answer: Elton John

Dudgeon, who passed away in 2002, produced 31 of Elton's studio albums, commencing with "Empty Sky" in 1969, which yielded John's first major international hit, "Your Song". The Dudgeon influence was strong on this 1972 album, introducing the occasional horns and strings to bring added depth.

He also raids the Elton John armoury, bring in Elton's guitarist, Davey Johnstone and his percussionist Ray Cooper to help out on the set.

Answer: Hair

Pam and Joan would form a musical partnership that would provide the bulk of Armatrading's songs for her first album "Whatever's For Us" (1972). Nestor would write the lyrics for eleven of the fourteen songs on the disc and receive a co-writer's credit. However, she did not appear on the album. Armatrading would write the lyrics for the remaining three songs, compose all of the music and play all of the instruments, apart from the drums. The record was recorded by Cube Records who had little interest in Nestor, they saw Armatrading as the real star in this partnership. This, in turn, created tension between the pair, which led to their parting of ways.

This, however, does provide an opportunity to compare this work with Armatrading's future releases. The fact that the tracks are short in nature, averaging less than three minutes each, is not of great interest, it is the perspective of the songs. All of them are of an outward-looking nature, whereas most of her future work would provide a strong "I-You" feel.

(Note) All of the other musicals mentioned above are from the 1970s.

Answer: Love & Affection

Joan Armatrading's self-titled third album would go gold in the UK and prove to be both a commercial and critical success. Many would argue that this album is the best in her catalogue. The album was produced by Glyn Johns, whose previous credit was with The Who on their 1975 set "The Who by Numbers". He dispensed with the strings and the horns and allowed Armatrading's voice and personality to shine through. The strength of Joan's lyrics had grown, however, it is her voice that adds both depth and muscle to songs such as "Love & Affection" and "Down to Zero". The album though, does not rest on these two songs alone, there are no fillers on this LP.

The other answer options are all singles by Joni Mitchell from the early 1970s. That choice was deliberate because Robin Denselow's review of the album, in The Guardian, indicated; the album "showed that we now have a black artist in Britain with the same sort of vocal range, originality (in fact even greater originality in terms of musical influences) and lyrical sensitivity" as Joni Mitchell.

Answer: False

Coming on the back of the success of her 1976 self-titled album, "Show Some Emotion" would be a strong seller for Joan Armatrading, with the LP earning gold record status in the UK. The album, however, is not a strong one. Yes, there are two great singles lifted from it in the title track and "Willow". Usually this would be enough to recommend its purchase but you can also obtain these two singles on any of her compilation albums. Gone is the smoothness in the voice that made her previous album the prize that it was. Joan's lyrics are also, somewhat, tired here.

Armatrading would receive a Grammy nomination four years later for her one-sided EP "How Cruel". The title track is a standout and it includes an amazing saxophone solo by jazz saxophonist Lon Price. It was also good enough to place her in the same company as Grace Slick, Linda Ronstadt, Marianne Faithful and, eventual winner, Pat Benatar for the Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance in 1981.

Answer: New wave

For all her critical acclaim, to this point, Joan Armatrading was not making the impact on the mainstream music market that she'd hoped for. On this album she discarded her folk-styled, confessional songs that had been her trademark and mainstay for a number of years. She also said goodbye to producer Glyn Johns, whose style had served to accentuate Armatrading's sensitivity. In came Richard Gottehrer, who'd commenced his career as a songwriter in the famed Brill Building in New York. Armatrading produced a hard edged rock album and a range of support musicians that would provide added muscle to her sound. Amongst these were legendary drummer, Anton Fig, the South African commonly called the "Thunder From Down Under" who is best noted for his work with Kiss and Ace Frehley, as well as members from Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band; Clarence Clemons (saxophone) and Danny Federici (organ).

The result was her biggest selling album in both the UK and the USA. The irony is that the single that launched the album, "All the Way From America", harked back to her earlier material.

Answer: Drop the Pilot

For the second time Joan Armatrading was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance and, for the second time, she lost out to four time winner Pat Benatar ("Love is a Battlefield"). The album, which almost matched the commercial success of "Me Myself I" (1980), was a much more aggressive offering from Armatrading, particularly with the singles "Drop the Pilot" and "(I Love it) When You Call Me Names". However, the aggression did not hamper Armatrading's ability to communicate her message or cover up her humour and humanity.

The other options above came from her 1981 album "Walk Under Ladders".

Answer: It was the last time she worked with a producer

Mike Howlett stepped into the producer's shoes for this Armatrading outing. His pedigree included albums with China Crisis, OMD and Berlin, all bands that were standard bearers of what could be termed the 1980s sound. That same atmosphere would invade this album (no, she didn't return to her folk roots). Howlett's opinion of Armatrading's skill in the studio was high in praise, stating, that she didn't need a producer, except, perhaps, in respect to her vocals. Despite this, the album failed to produce a hit single. It didn't prevent it, however, from being a commercial success, peaking at number fourteen (no, it didn't make it to number one) on the UK Album charts and consolidating the work of her previous three albums.

Joan was still with the A&M Records label and would remain with them until 1992 (no, it wasn't her last album with a major label), releasing the albums "Sleight of Hand" (1986), "The Shouting Stage" (1988), "Hearts and Flowers" (1990) and "Square the Circle" (1992).

Answer: True

When the behemoth that is PolyGram swallowed up the relatively independent A&M Records, Joan Armatrading decided it was time to jump ship. Her partnership with A&M had held together for eighteen fruitful years. However, the partnership with RCA was brief, just one album. And, it is probably little wonder. RCA, for some reason, treated the recording as if it were a national secret and, as a result, it failed to chart in the US. It did much better in her home, the UK, as well as Australia.

For Armatrading, the album was a return to her past with the tracks reflecting the changes in her music through the years, from the close and intimate whispers of her "Love and Affection" ways to her pop savvy approach in "Me Myself I". The album's undersold excellence was eventually recognised when the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA) presented Joan with the 1996 Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contemporary Song Collection.

Answer: Jazz

Free from a major label and now truly independent, Joan Armatrading had total control over her future. Her aim now was create a trilogy of albums, each one focussed on a particular genre and each one full of her original songs. Her first venture into the blues, appropriately titled, "Into the Blues" was released in 2007.

This shot to number one on the US Blues charts, stimulated great interest in her back catalogue and earned her a third Grammy nomination, this time for Best Contemporary Blues Album.

She would lose out to J.J. Cale and Eric Clapton for "The Road to Escondido". Whilst the album featured some amazing guitar solos by Armatrading it became difficult to associate this folk/pop singer crying the blues. The sincerity that Armatrading could generate into something like "Show Some Emotion" could not be heard when she'd sing "my baby's gone away". "This Charming Life" (2010) heralded the rock phase of the trilogy and Joan gets heavy on this disc. So much so that it makes the aggression in "The Key" (1983) sound like Atomic Kitten.

The trilogy is rounded off by "Starlight" in 2012, an album that is truly luxurious in its sound and serves as a perfect accompaniment to the first two recordings.