”I’m not in love, but I’m open to persuasion”

Before the chill lady with the smooth voice, ringing guitar, and possibly Sapphic tendencies became the stuff of (sometimes laughably bad) cliché, Joan Armatrading was a pre-Lilith Fair anomaly.

Armatrading was born in the West Indies in 1950. Her family moved to Birmingham, England when she was three, and sent for her and her siblings as they could afford to—she wasn’t able to rejoin her parents until the age of seven. Though her father was a musician, she was never allowed to play his guitar, and taught herself on a pawn shop acoustic her mother traded for two baby strollers.

Armatrading quit school at 15 to start factory work supporting her family, but at 16 she was performing her own material in clubs, and at 18 found herself in the London stage production of Hair!, (notoriously shy, she abstained from the nude scenes).  It was here she met Pam Nestor, with whom she wrote her debut album, Whatever’s for Us.

Her music is absolutely beautiful: complex, sweet, and sincere. It’s easy to see how she launched 1,000 imitators.

As famous for her introspective, tender vocal delivery as her closely guarded private life (and performance anxiety), Armatrading is believed to have married her girlfriend in a quiet ceremony last year.

Below, Track Record, one half doc about the enigmatic singer/songwriter, one half travelogue.