it doesn't get much better than this

Joan Armatrading is a bit like a British female Bill Withers



Which is to say, a singer-songwriter (played guitar, only sang her own songs, has never done a cover version) who went in this sort of AOR-soul direction.

Record companies didn't know what to do with either of them.

Don't know if she was pushed in a New Wave direction or went of her own volition, but I rather like this era of Armatrading



New Wave's austerity really suited her dry folky voice-texture and aloof persona (Joan Armourplating, the music papers unkindly nicknamed her, on account of being guarded in interviews, I guess)

(Was "Me Myself & I" a phrase in common parlance that she picked up on, or her coinage? And did De La Soul get it from her?)

This one is also nice.