PP ARNOLD - LIVE ON THE ROAD AGAIN

PP Arnold is one of those amazing artists known to all. A true A-lister, she has been at the forefront of modern music for decades. Since bursting onto the UK scene in the 1960s as an Ikette, a backing singer with Ike & Tina Turner – she sings on the triumphant ‘River Deep, Mountain High’ – to her own glittering solo career with huge hits like ‘The First Cut is the Deepest’ – written by Cat Stevens for her! – and ‘Angel of the Morning’ she has been little short of a musical whirlwind, blown by musical changes but always remaining strong, powerful and resolute in her own undimmed ability and determination to keep performing at all costs.

 Iain Patience  Arnie Goodman

Speaking with PP is both an honour and a huge pleasure, much as one would expect and hope for. Topics range widely across a huge spectrum from live performances, through her current stage set based on a remarkably revealing autobiography to her latest album, a full-throttle, roaring live album captured as a closing set on a tour a few years ago – ‘Live in Liverpool.’

This an album that really captures the still hugely powerful and demanding vocal delivery of the singer while covering a huge amount of musical ground. Featuring her previously mentioned huge hits, other tracks range from Paul Weller’s wonderful ‘Shoot the Dove’ through Steve Craddock’s ‘Magic Hour’ and the Beatles’ ‘Eleanor Rigby’ – here delivered with a rarely heard passion.

Based on her successful 2019 release, ‘The `New Adventures of ….PP Arnold’ the subsequent live tour of the project culminated in this recording at Liverpool’s Grand Central Hall before a wildly enthusiastic audience, keen to see the UK’s ‘First Lady of Soul’ in action.

As we chat about her career, PP recalls how she became involved in the UK music business as a shy, introverted youngster on a first British tour with Ike & Tina Turner:

“There’s two tours, the Soul Survivor Tour – and my own story, based on my book. I’m enjoying it now cause it all seems to have come together and it’s going really well. It’s been like a lot of hard work. Sure, it can be tiring but that’s how the business works. I’m a survivor and I can handle that stuff.”

“I want to cover everything about my life and career but it’s difficult to know what to keep in, what to remove. I want to include as much as possible; I’ve my times with Eric Clapton, Steve Marriot, Ronnie Lane, Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood, Mick Jagger. All that stuff, central to my life really.”

“On the album is the whole set from my tour in 2019. It is a lot of stuff with a great time organised by Steve Craddock. Steve is Paul Weller’s guitarist and he has a great studio down in Devon.”

“I was with Ike & Tina in London. I never planned on being in show business or looking for stardom or anything like that. It all sort of started as an answer to a prayer. But back home in the USA, I was told there was an audition for a backing singer with them, so I went along and sang and they gave me the job!”

”I started with gospel, and I still do that on my show. I take it way back to when I had church in my Aunt Catherine’s living room. That was a sort of original Call and Answer kind of thing, maybe more like blues really.”

“I had Steve Craddock with me, it was great working with him and he produced the new album. It was just great that he was able to get out on the road with me, MC it

all and organise the best band, a full nine-piece band. A really fabulous affair.”

“I’m independent and I have to fight every step of the way. I love to sing and I work on my voice. Cause I never want it to sound like an old lady! I just love to sing. I go to a studio and work on that all the time. My singing is my happy place.”

“I’ve never been into that celebrity thing. I believe God gave me a gift and my job is to inspire and uplift with my voice. I’ve suffered in this industry but I’ve always given it my all. I love every gig I do.”

“Artists just have to be so proactive these days. As an independent artist it’s so tough nowadays. I think I just need to have real strong team around me and without that things just don’t happen. I think of what Michelle Obama says, ‘When they go low, I go high!”

“I was very shy. I was very introverted. I never planned to be in show business and perform until I was offered that opportunity. I took it because I was going to leave the Ike & Tina Review when we went back to the States because I’d had enough of Ike and the way he treated Tina. It was just a job to me anyhow back then. I didn’t know what I’d do when I got back. But I’d taken it cause I had to support my children and to get out of an abusive relationship and marriage I was in.”

“So, when Mick (Jagger) and Andrew (Loog Oldham – the then Stones manager) – offered me the opportunity to stay here I kinda felt that my whole life, I’d come this far and there were people believing in me so I had to start believing in myself. I didn’t know about my talent. I just knew that I loved to sing. I was really blessed to be able to start off with people like Andrew and Mick Jagger. He didn’t know exactly what to do with me, but I was lucky to be with peo ple who were so creative at that time.”

“Andrew was cool, he was out there. As I always say, he was very young. We all were then. `People put him on a sort of pedestal at times but he was just as young as all and he was wrapped up in that drug-culture of the time. And that affected what hap pened to his Immediate label really. But as my manager, he had a vision. I didn’t have a vison for myself back then. I didn’t know who I was or where I was going. He did.”

“First Cut was just such a blessing. And to think, he (Cat Stevens) wrote that song for me. I lived that. I think my version is the best. I did it ten years before Rod (Stewart) and I don’t even know if Sheryl Crowe was born! I really think my version is a classic!”

“I had the opportunity to sing it with Yousef at a Parkinsons’ charity concert, three weeks ago. It was the first time I had the opportunity to sing it with him. It was truly a beautiful thing. I hadn’t seen him for a while, since around 2007 when I was with Roger Waters where we were doing Earls Court. I saw him and went to hug him and he said, ‘No, you can’t hug me!’ cause of his belief thing. But his daughter was with him so I asked if I could hug her instead! But when I saw him this time he was a lot more relaxed and hugged me. So, it was really beautiful. We had a good time reminiscing and talking and sadly remembering mutual friends who have passed.”

Steve Marriot comes to mind as one of her previous famed partners, and as soon as I raise the name:

“Oh yes, oh yes! What a voice! I loved Stephen. I sang on Tin Soldier and Itchycoo Park, of course. We just instantly connected. What a force he was. We messed around a bit too,” she confirms with a chuckle. “And why not. Steve and I were more like a soul brother and soul sister. In those days everybody was young. We were all so young and just growing up together. Then just when he was getting his stuff back together, he died so young!

“Back as a youngster in London I wanted to be part of that whole British Invasion of music thing, like Eric and all those others did, but I forgot about that racist attitude of America. I was really trying to be a part of that. That was a tragedy for me. It led to the death of my daughter, Debbie, an absolute tragedy. But I came back from that and got a part in Starlight Express and my career was kick-started again".