This month sees the release of the first ever, career-spanning collection of music by soul legend, P.P. Arnold. 

Available as a 57-track, 3CD box set or a 25-track double LP version, Soul Survivor – A Life In Song, is a companion piece to her 2022 autobiography of the same name. 

With a sleeve created by photographer (and her close friend) Gered Mankowitz, and with extensive new sleeve notes by author, Jude Rogers, the collection includes key singles and album tracks, as well as previously unreleased recordings, demo versions, live performances, and some rare mixes that are being reissued for the very first time.

The compilation features duets and collaborations with Rod Stewart, Chip Taylor, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Dr. Robert, and Andy Gibb. 

Born in Los Angeles, California, in 1946, Arnold joined Ike and Tina Turner as an ‘Ikette’, which brought her to London in the Swinging ’60s.

Since her early days signed to Andrew Loog Oldham’s Immediate label – her debut solo album, The First Lady of Immediate, featuring hit single, The First Cut Is The Deepest, came out in 1968 – Arnold’s allies, associates and working partners during her colourful and varied career have included The Small Faces, Cat Stevens, Mick Jagger, Barry Gibb, Eric Clapton, The Blockheads’ Chaz Jankel, Roger Waters, The Beatmasters, Primal Scream, The KLF and Ocean Colour Scene. 

In an exclusive interview with Say It With Garage Flowers, we ask her to tell us about some of the lesser-known tracks that appear on the box set and get her to reflect on just a few of her many collaborations.

Q&A

Has the box set been in development for a while?

P.P. Arnold: We started working on it after Soul Survivor [the book.] There’s a lovely guy called Michael Mulligan, who has put box sets together for loads of different people – it’s been two or three years. We worked on it together – I’ve been very closely involved. There were some things that we couldn’t get the rights for, but I got most of the things I wanted.

There’s a lot of great stuff for your fans included, and several songs that I didn’t know you’d recorded or released…

P.P. Arnold: It’s good, and I’m pleased about that. I would’ve liked to have included more of the stuff I did with Pressure Point – we did a really good album [This Is London] with a great band. It’s got good production…

The song that is included, Leave Right Now, has an acid jazz feel…

P.P. Arnold: It was acid jazz – and it was going to come out on the Acid Jazz label…

In the ‘80s, you were adopted by the UK dance music scene and made records with acts like The Beatmasters, who you met while in the studio singing for commercials…

P.P. Arnold: I was doing jingles, and they were doing dance music. I started writing some songs with Richard Warmsley [The Beatmasters], who was a great keyboard player. We started getting serious and they asked me to do a track with them. I didn’t know what house music was, so I asked them was it funky? I wasn’t into that whole thing that was coming out of Chicago… So, I went into the studio with them, and we cut Burn It Up. It was a very happening time with dance music.

So, did you get into the scene?

P.P. Arnold: Yes, I did, but I didn’t do a lot of shows – The Beatmasters weren’t into gigging…

A lot of dance music was studio-based…

P.P. Arnold: Exactly – I’m the only live thing on the track, but I couldn’t get a record deal after Burn It Up. That’s why I did Dynamite, which I wrote with Kenny Moore [Tina Turner] – I had my own record company, which was ambitious, but I didn’t know about releasing records and all the under-the-table things that had to go down. I couldn’t compete, but The Beatmasters produced Dynamite, and we made a video. It had an underground kind of vibe.

Through The Beatmasters, I was introduced to The KLF, and I did some stuff with them. I also did E Vapor 8 with Altern-8 – there’s a crazy video for it on YouTube.

 

Let’s go back to the early ‘70s, to talk about your single, A Likely Piece of Work and the B-side, May The Winds Blow, which are both included on the box set. They were written by Jack Good and Ray Pohlman, and had a different sound to the British, pastoral-psych-pop sound you’d explored in the ‘60s – they sound more like punchy Northern Soul, or Stax…

P.P. Arnold: I guess they do, but they were produced in England. They were from the musical, Catch My Soul, which was a rock version of Othello. I knew Jack Good from the Shindig show in America.

You worked with P.J. Proby on Catch My Soul. How was that? Did he split his trousers?

P.P. Arnold: No, he didn’t, but he was a nightmare to work with, I tell you. He was a wild guy and he had a problem with alcohol. He used to show up in the morning… he used to drink Boone’s Farm apple wine… it wasn’t cool. It was what it was. I played Bianca in the show, and they beefed-up my role. In the original Shakespeare version, she was a harlot.

In the late ‘70s, you sang a duet with Andy Gibb on the Goffin and King song, Will You Love Me Tomorrow? It’s on the box set and it has a slight disco feel. Was that the first song you recorded after the death of your daughter, Debbie, in a car accident in L.A?

P.P. Arnold: It was – Barry Gibb invited me to come down to Miami and the idea was to finish the album we’d started. I took him up on his offer because I had to get out of Hollywood – I was too sensitive to be there. I was going to record with Barry, but when I got there he wasn’t able to do anything. Stigwood [Robert – Bee Gees manager] wasn’t up for it.

Barry was producing Barbra Streisand, Dionne Warwick and Olivia Newton-John – I didn’t have any support systems behind me, or a label… He was also producing a best of album for Andy Gibb, and he said I could do a duet with him for it – it’s such a beautiful version.

Let’s talk about Electric Dreams from the box set – it was featured on the soundtrack to the film that came out in 1984, and was co-written by Boy George. It was released as a single and has an ‘80s electro-pop feel…

P.P. Arnold: Don Was produced it and George did all the styling for the video. It came out as a single, and it was popular – the video is really sweet –  but the Giorgio Moroder [and Philip Oakey] song, Together in Electric Dreams, was used…

I didn’t know your song, A Little Pain, which is on the box set. It has a smooth R & B/soul sound, like Anita Baker or Phyllis Hyman…

P.P. Arnold: It was produced by Dexter Wansel and Nick Martinelli did the remixes. It had that Philly International vibe fused with Loose Ends – Carl McIntosh worked with us on it.

The Human Heart, which is also on the box set, comes from the musical, Once On This Island, which you appeared in. It’s a big Broadway ballad that starts with piano and vocals and then builds into a full arrangement…

P.P. Arnold: It’s beautiful. I love singing ballads. That’s the other side of me. I was heavily influenced by Dionne Warwick and Bacharach & David – that whole period of the ‘60s, which influenced a lot of what I did with Immediate and Andrew Loog Oldham. There are some beautiful ballads on The First Lady of Immediate album, like Something Beautiful Happened.

Do you think people often perceive you as a soul diva and forget your softer singing side?

P.P. Arnold: I just love to sing – I’ll sing the phone book if you give it to me! I can do jazz and blues… It’s all in me. I’ve got my own lane and the whole ‘60s British soul kind of thing is what people know me for.

In the ‘90s, you worked with Ocean Colour Scene – the single, It’s A Beautiful Thing, is on the box set – and, since then, you’ve collaborated with the band’s guitarist, Steve Cradock – he produced your 2019 album, The New Adventures of P.P. Arnold. One of my favourite tracks on the box set is your demo version of The Small Faces’ I’m Only Dreaming, which you did with Steve. It’s beautiful. I can remember you doing a version of it during lockdown for an online concert organised by the magazine, Shindig!…

‘I’ve got my own lane and the whole ‘60s British soul kind of thing is what people know me for’

P.P. Arnold: I love it. We wanted to do it for the album [The New Adventures of P.P. Arnold], but there was so much stuff going on with the politics of the Steve Marriott estate. I didn’t want to do any of the Small Faces tracks because of that – his kids were being ripped off, and his mother was still alive… so I stayed away from it.  I wanted to record Afterglow… I did a funky version of it with Tony Remy, and I wanted to put it on the box set, but the recording wasn’t great.

The unreleased ‘90s recordings you did with Chaz Jankel (Ian Dury and The Blockheads) are available on the box set – there are four songs: Salobreña, Take Me To The Top, God In U, God In Me, and Which Side You On? You first met him in 1983, didn’t you?

P.P. Arnold: Yes – I met him when I first came back to England [from America]. I was going out with a guitar player who was working with Chaz – he had a studio just off Portobello Road. We really connected musically, and I wanted to do something with him then, but the guy I was with then was an idiot and got jealous, so it just didn’t happen.

Did you co-write the songs with Chaz?

P.P. Arnold: Yes – they were songs of mine, but Chaz put the music to them. I’d been living with God In U, God In Me for a long time…

It’s a protest song with an anti-war message…

P.P. Arnold: Yes – it’s so right for now. It’s all about how religion has so much to answer for.

‘I’ve got bags of songs, but I’ve never had the chance to work with people to develop them. Back in the day, nobody wanted me to write…’

Why did the songs you did with Chaz never get released in the ‘90s?

P.P. Arnold: Neither of us could get a look in – people thought we were too old. I’ve got bags of songs, but I’ve never had the chance to work with people to develop them. Back in the day, nobody wanted me to write – they weren’t interested in me being a writer. They wanted me to sing their writers’ songs.

There’s a great track called Temptation that you did with Chip Taylor on the box set – it’s a country-blues song, but with a hip-hop beat, and it’s from his 2001 album, Black and Blue America…

P.P. Arnold: Yeah – that song is a historical track about America, slavery, politics, rednecks and all the biblical wrongs that went down. It’s a funky track and I’m glad that it’s on the box set for the same reason as God In U, God In Me – those songs are very political, revolutionary and spiritual. People don’t really know me for doing stuff like that. I write a lot of political stuff, but it’s not out there. I’m pleased that these songs are going to be heard.

Let’s talk about Five In The Afternoon – the brilliant 2007 album that you made with Dr. Robert of The Blow Monkeys: there are four songs from it on the box set. It’s a great ‘lost’ album. He wrote it for the both of you, didn’t he?

P.P. Arnold: He did. I didn’t get a chance to be involved in the whole writing process, as I was on the road with Roger Waters – Robert wrote all the songs, but I contributed a lot to that album, like the melodies.

A lot of the tracks are cool – they remind me of my mum and dad’s grooves from the ‘40s and ‘50s. It’s a great album and we sound great together on it.

I met Robert at a party – we had a mutual friend, and they were jamming there. I got up and sang with them – I think we did The First Cut Is The Deepest and some Curtis Mayfield.

I love your live versions of the two Sandy Denny songs on the box set: Take Me Away and Like An Old Fashioned Waltz, which are taken from the Denny tribute show, The Lady, which you performed in…

P.P. Arnold: They were from a show at The Barbican. I also did the Sandy Denny song, I’m A Dreamer [on The New Adventures of P.P. Arnold]. Steve Cradock was really into her, and I told him that I’d sung in the show. Take Me Away has a real gospel vibe – I did a recording of it with Tony Remy too, but they decided to use the other one on the box set.

You’ve covered a Bob Dylan song that’s on the box set too, Well, Well, Well, with Steve Howe of Yes. It’s from his album Portraits of Bob Dylan…

P.P. Arnold: That’s a great funky tune. Steve called me out of the blue and asked me to do it, which was lovely – we go way back. He played guitar when I was on the Delaney & Bonnie tour.

Do you think you’ll incorporate some of the lesser-known songs on the box set into your current live set?

P.P. Arnold: Absolutely. I like to change my set a lot, and I have so many great songs in the catalogue that I never get a chance to sing. I’m thinking about all that.

This year, it’s the 60^th anniversary of Immediate. Any plans to do something around that?

P.P. Arnold: Yeah, it will happen, but there’s some politics going on… I think Kenney Jones has the licence to do something with The Small Faces…

Immediate had issues back in the day, and 60 years on, there are still things that need to be resolved…

P.P. Arnold: Definitely – it’s a journey. Nobody got paid… When I came back [to the UK] in the ‘80s, I wanted to know what was going on, and I started things happening. Kenney came out of the woodwork and Rod [Stewart] – everybody was interested. Everybody got ripped off in the ‘60s, and all the artists who are in the higher echelons of the industry now are the ones who got through the ‘70s – that’s when everybody started making money.

P.P. Arnold: Soul Survivor – A Life In Song is released on February 21 via Demon Music Group / Edsel.