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‘I just love to sing – I’ll sing the phone book if you give it to me!’

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P.P. Arnold. Picture by Gered Mankowitz

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.

P.P. Arnold – picture by Robin Clewley

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!…

P.P. Arnold when she was recording for Immediate in the ’60s. Photo credit: LONDON FEATURES/Avalon/Avalon.

‘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…’

P.P. Arnold – picture by Robin Clewley

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 60th 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…

Photo credit: LONDON FEATURES/Avalon/Avalon.

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.

P.P. Arnold will be touring in the spring. Please check her website for details: www.pparnold.com.

 

‘I want people to know that I’m still out here, fighting the good fight’

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Picture of P.P. Arnold by Gered Mankowitz

This month sees the release of a new live album by ’60s soul singer and mod icon, P.P. Arnold.

Live In Liverpool was recorded in 2019 at Grand Central Hall, on the tour for her album The New Adventures of… P.P. Arnold, which she made with Steve Cradock (Paul Weller and Ocean Colour Scene guitarist) at the helm.

It features versions of her hit singles, The First Cut Is The Deepest and Angel Of The Morning, as well as songs from 2017’s The Turning Tide and The New Adventures of… P.P. Arnold, which followed two years later.

Other tracks on Live In Liverpool include I Believe and Hold On To Your Dreams, which were both co-written with her son, musician Kojo Samuel, as well as Weller’s Shoot The Dove, covers of The Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby and The Beach Boys’ God Only Knows, and Magic Hour by Cradock.

Arnold, who turned 78 earlier this month, was born in L.A, and was one of Ike & Tina Turner’s singing and dancing troupe, The Ikettes, before she moved to Britain in 1966, where she launched a solo career that’s lasted almost 60 years.

She’s worked with acts including Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, The Small Faces, Eric Clapton, Nick Drake, Barry Gibb, Peter Gabriel, Roger Waters, Primal Scream, Ocean Colour Scene and Paul Weller.

Early next year, her career will be celebrated with a new 3-CD box set, which will include rarities and unreleased material.

In an exclusive interview, Arnold talks to Say It With Garage Flowers about Live In Liverpool, collaborating with Cradock and Weller, her ‘lost years’ in the ’70s, the new box set, and appearing as the animated character, Cleo Nibbles – the Soul Mouse, on CBeebies show Yukee earlier this year.

“I just want to do as much as I can while I can,” she tells us.

Q&A

Before we start chatting about the new record, I just want to say that I’m not sure if I should call you P.P. or Cleo Nibbles – the Soul Mouse…

P.P. Arnold (Laughs): She’s a darling, isn’t she?

How did the opportunity to voice a cartoon character come about and was it fun to do?

P.P. Arnold: It was big fun! They contacted me, we did it and it’s really great. I love it, and I told them, ‘I’ll do a Cleo Nibbles album!’ I would love to do it for the kids.

Cleo Nibbles, the Soul Mouse, from BBC children’s show Yukee – voiced by P.P. Arnold: picture courtesy of the BBC

Was that your first time doing voiceover work?

P.P. Arnold: I used to do loads of jingles and stuff, but it was the first time I’d done a voiceover like that. I like doing things that I’ve never done before.

Let’s talk about your new album, Live In Liverpool, which was recorded in October 2019 at Grand Central Hall, on the tour for your album The New Adventures of… P.P. Arnold. What was special about that show that made you decide to put it out as a live album?

P.P. Arnold: It was just a great gig, and it was in Liverpool, at a great venue… We recorded quite a few gigs, but that particular one was the last night of the tour, and it was just a great night… It was a solid show and it just worked.

How was it touring that album, which has a big production, with rich arrangements? You had an eight-piece band on the road with you…

P.P. Arnold: I was lucky because I had Steve Cradock batting for me – he dealt with the musical direction, and the musicians were all guys he knew – Andy Flynn [bass, guitar] was from the Steve Cradock Band. Tony Coote played drums on the album, so he knew what to do. I’d been touring with those guys previously, promoting The Turning Tide album, so we all knew each other. Steve and I have been working together for quite some time.

‘I always believe that Steve Marriott had something to do with bringing Steve Cradock and I together, spiritually’

You first met him in the ’90s, didn’t you? 

P.P. Arnold: I remember it like it was yesterday. I was on the road doing theatre – the musical Once On This Island, which won an Olivier Award. Steve came to see me at the last show, which was in Birmingham – he showed up with flowers and introduced himself. They [Ocean Colour Scene] wanted me to go to the studio that night, but I was going back to London. So, after that, we hooked up when we did the tribute album for The Small Faces [Long Agos and Worlds Apart –1997].

What’s the chemistry that you have with Steve? Why does your relationship work?

P.P. Arnold: I always believe that Steve Marriott had something to do with bringing us together, spiritually – we both love Steve and he is in that mix… Steve [Cradock] and Sally [his wife] are like my babies – I sang at their wedding. It’s a family affair with us.

When I was working with Ocean Colour Scene, they were very young. Steve’s dad, Chris, didn’t quite get me – I was doing Reiki and stuff, because I was trying to put protection around everyone. He thought I was a bit of a witch or something… I was into nutrition and regeneration – my spirit is really strong – but I was going out on the road with these kids, and you know what they were doing back then… That had all been in my past… Anyway, it’s all cool now.

 

Let’s talk about some of the songs on Live In Liverpool. Baby Blue, which is on The New Adventures of… P.P. Arnold, was written by Steve Cradock and Steve Grizzell. Was it written for you?

P.P. Arnold: No – Steve [Cradock] brought it to the table. He had a relationship with Steve Grizzell. When he first presented me with the song, I didn’t think it was good for me – I thought it was too pop. I didn’t really get the lyric until I found out what the song was all about it – I like to know that… I like to know what I’m singing about, because, for me, it’s all about expression and telling the story.

When I spoke to Steve Grizzell, he told me that the song was about a young girl who had become pregnant and her parents made her give her baby away, so that was why she was ‘baby blue.’ Wow – then it hit me hard, because it was close to an experience I had had as a young girl, becoming pregnant. It was different, because she had to give her child away, but it was about the whole teen pregnancy thing and how it affects a young girl’s life.

She became a goth – the lyric says: ‘You should be standing out in peacock feathers like you used to do before you were baby blue.’ Once I got the story, I loved the song.

Musically, it has an authentic, late ’60s pop-soul feel…

P.P. Arnold: Exactly – Steve Cradock loves all that about me, that I’m authentic and from the ’60s, but still here and able to do that.

There’s a version of Everything’s Gonna Be Alright on the new live album. That song, which was originally released in 1967, has become a Northern Soul classic, hasn’t it? 

P.P. Arnold: It was my first single and it did absolutely nothing. I missed that whole Northern Soul thing because I wasn’t here [in England] in the ’70s. I came back in the ’80s and that record was being sold for £100 and I thought, ‘Wow!’ That got me chasing my royalties…

I never used to sing it because I thought it was a bit twee at the time – I’d come from the States and being an Ikette… I wasn’t even sure about who P.P. Arnold was… Even though I was a soul singer, all my music was produced by English producers, so it wasn’t like Motown soul or Stax soul… I created that sort of pop-soul fusion…

You had that late ’60s London sound… 

P.P. Arnold: Everything about me was British production… When I went back home to the States [in the ’70s] nobody was into what I was doing, but when I worked with Eric Clapton, he produced my roots and gospel sound and got more of a funky thing. But a lot of people didn’t get that because in the States it was what I called the ‘hot lick syndrome’ – everyone was trying to sound like Chaka Khan, and it was a modern gospel sound, so everyone thought what I was doing as a black American singer was lame.

Picture by Gered Mankowitz

A lot of people still don’t get my sound because it’s more old-school gospel and soul-based. My thing is about singing songs – it’s not about ‘licking’ all over the place.

I can do that, but I have more of a melodic sound in the way in which I express a song. I’ve got my own lane – this is me, I’m P.P. Arnold and I have a distinctive sound.

‘A lot of people still don’t get my sound because it’s more old-school gospel and soul-based’

There’s a great and very powerful version of (If You Think You’re) Groovy on the live album. That song was written for you by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane from The Small Faces…

P.P. Arnold: Absolutely – they first wrote Afterglow for me, but they kept it back and gave me (If You Think You’re) Groovy… I’ve done some versions of Afterglow but I haven’t released any of them because of all the politics with the publishing and his family not getting the rights. I know Steve would be pissed off about what’s happened with that. I’ve stayed out of it, but recently Steve [Cradock] and I did a really beautiful acoustic version of I’m Only Dreaming [Small Faces song] that’s going on the box set I’ve got coming out. I didn’t want to put it on there, but it’s such a lovely version.

When’s the box set being released?

P.P. Arnold: February. There should be pre-orders around Christmas time. It will have unreleased and rare stuff on it, including the tracks I did with Chaz Jankel, which were never released. The stuff I did with Dr. Robert is on there…

I love the 2007 album you made with him: Five in the Afternoon…

P.P. Arnold: It’s a great record, but the label it was on shut down and it never got the exposure.

Let’s go back to the live album…You co-wrote I Believe, which is on it, with your son, Kojo…

P.P. Arnold: Yeah, And Hold On To Your Dreams, which was the first single. When I did Burn It Up with The Beatmasters, I was the only live thing on the record, but I was the only one who couldn’t get a record deal… I was being really revolutionary about it, and after that I recorded a track called Dynamite – that’s going to be on the box set. I did it with Kenny Moore, who was Tina Turner’s keyboard player, and The Beatmasters produced it.

I needed to get my shit together, so I had a 16-track setup at my house that Kojo was cutting his production teeth on – he produced his momma. So, we did those tracks [I Believe and Hold On To Your Dreams] and I was trying to get a deal with them – and we did them in a real dance format, but we couldn’t get a record deal.

I didn’t want him, as a young man, to have to be going through my struggle and disappointments – the ageism thing was being laid on me – because he was doing some great work… Steve [Cradock] heard those tracks, and we decided to do them, and they’re great.

I Believe has a ’70s disco feel, and is very spiritual – it’s a positive song…

P.P. Arnold – Both of those songs are very spiritual. You said I Believe has a ’70s thing on it – that’s cool, because I was feeling Stevie Wonder – that kind of groove. Kojo and I wrote those songs together – he laid the tracks down, and I had the lyrics… He’s great – I’d love to be working with him now, but he don’t have time for me!

Medicated Goo, from The Turning Tide, is on the live album – it’s a great version. That’s a big song when you play it in concert… 

P.P. Arnold: It is, and I make sure that everyone knows that the ‘medicated goo’ is a healer… It’s not just about getting high…

I really like your version of the beautiful Sandy Denny song, I’m A Dreamer, which you recorded for The New Adventures Of… P.P. Arnold, and is also on the live album. She was such a great singer and songwriter. Did you ever meet her?

P.P. Arnold: I didn’t get to meet her, because during the ’70s, I’d gone back to America, and I’m still coming back from that period…

You call that time in the ’70s ‘the lost years…’ 

P.P. Arnold: Yeah – the lost years… Had my stuff from then been released at the time – the Barry Gibb tracks, The Turning Tide and the Eric Clapton productions – it would’ve been a whole other story…

Talking about Sandy Denny, who was part of the ’60s and ’70s English folk scene, you and Doris Troy sang backing vocals on Nick Drake’s Poor Boy, from his 1971 album, Bryter Layter. Do you have any memories of that session?

P.P. Arnold: Yeah, I remember Doris Troy calling me and saying, ‘Hey, baby, what you doing tonight? Do you want to come and do a session with me?

We went to Fulham [Sound Techniques studio, Chelsea] with the producer, Joe Boyd… It was another session, y’know… but there was a vibe that night with him [Nick Drake] – he was very reserved and quiet… a very shy guy.

We worked with him quite closely, and he explained what he wanted us to do, and what the song was about. We just gave him what he wanted. As I talk about it, I’m getting chills… It was a lovely evening, working with a really nice guy.

At the time, I didn’t really know who he was, and I didn’t find out about that track until I came back in the ’80s.

Paul Weller is a big Nick Drake fan, and you’ve worked with Paul…You sing his song Shoot The Dove on Live In Liverpool… How’s Paul to work with? 

P.P. Arnold: I love Paul – he has been so supportive. When Steve Cradock and I were doing  The New Adventures… I told him about the tracks [from The Turning Tide] that I’d finally got the licence for and that I needed somewhere to mix them. Paul and Steve let me mix them at Black Barn. I met him in the ’90s, when I was doing stuff with Ocean Colour Scene, and I went to a couple of his shows. He’s lovely, and he gave me Shoot The Dove and When I Was Part of Your Picture.  

There’s a lovely moment on the live album where you sing Eleanor Rigby, in Liverpool, and you tell the crowd it’s one of your favourite songs by The Beatles. I really like your version of it, with the church-like organ on it… 

P.P. Arnold: Yeah – that whole Hammond vibe…

You recorded Eleanor Rigby on your second album, Kafunta, which came out in 1968. Did you meet The Beatles?

P.P. Arnold: I’ve met Paul a couple of times – we once met in Harrods, doing Christmas shopping –  but I didn’t know John or Ringo. I met George, because we did the Delaney & Bonnie tour together. We had to go over the Channel in a boat – I shared a cabin with Lesley Duncan, George and Billy Preston. Billy was a gentleman – such a beautiful guy. I knew he was gay, so he wouldn’t be jumping on my bones!

I knew him from church – when I was 12 years old, me and my sister were in a gospel group that sang at Billy’s church. He also used to hang out with Ike and Tina Turner.

On Kafunta, you recorded songs by The Beatles, The Beach Boys and The Rolling Stones. Was that your decision, or was it down to your producer, Andrew Loog Oldham?

P.P. Arnold: Andrew had a vision and great ideas, but I was never forced to sing anything. If I didn’t like a song, I didn’t have to sing it. I didn’t have confidence in myself as an artist. I never came into the industry saying, ‘I’m an artist and I want to do this, or I want to do that…’ That’s why I got lost in the ’70s, because the universe had always put me with people who knew what they were doing.

‘I just want to do as much as I can while I can, and if it’s possible to move onwards and upwards, instead of going round in circles, that’s what I want to be doing’

There’s a nice live version of Life Is But Nothing, which was on your first album, The First Lady of Immediate, on the new record. You’d never sung that live before, had you?

P.P. Arnold: I’d never sung it… Steve Cradock insisted I sing it, and now I sing it all the time.

The live album ends with The First Cut Is The Deepest, which was the song that kick-started your career. You had a hit with it in 1967. It was written by Cat Stevens and you recently sang it on stage with him…

P.P. Arnold: I did – in Henley. That was great. It was the first time I’d seen him since 2007, which was the first time I’d seen him since 1968! The concert was for Mike Hurst, who produced The First Cut Is The Deepest, as he has Parkinson’s – it was a fundraiser for charity.  

‘I’m making another record –  I’m doing a duet with Paul Weller and I think I’m going to do some more stuff with Steve Cradock’

After Everything Is Gonna Be Alright didn’t happen, I really needed a hit if I was going to stay here. My kids were with my mum [in the US], and she gave me six months to make it work, but Mike brought that great song to the table, and it’s the story of my life. It was as if the song had been written for me.

Any plans for a new studio album?

P.P. Arnold: Oh, I’m making another record. I’ve finished a track called I Know We’ll Get There, and I’m doing a duet with Paul Weller. I heard from him yesterday, when he was in the States… It’s just about [having the] time – when can we do it? Paul’s got a lot going on, and I haven’t got a label behind me, driving things… Anyway, he’s cool and we’re staying in touch about it – divine order will make it happen.

Steve Marriott will make it happen…

P.P. Arnold: Yeah – he’ll make it happen, and I think I’m going to do some more stuff with Steve Cradock that will go on the album.

You’ve had to deal with tragedies, difficulties and a lot of bad luck in your life, but you’re always such a positive person. I’ve met and interviewed you a few times and I find you inspirational – you always cheer me up and you have an aura…

‘I just want to do as much as I can while I can, and if it’s possible to move onwards and upwards, instead of going round in circles, that’s what I want to be doing’

P.P. Arnold: Thank you. I’m pure energy. There’s no way I could do it without it. I can’t mess around with my vocals, so I’ve never really been into drinking a whole lot, as it dehydrates me and affects my voice. I love to sing. There’s other stuff you do when you’re young and you’re growing up… I couldn’t be doing what I’m doing and looking like I’m looking if I was doing that stuff…

You look great… 

P.P. Arnold: Well, thank you. I’ve invested in my health and fitness. Hey, man, how long that’s going to be going on, I don’t know… What I do know is that I just want to do as much as I can while I can, and if it’s possible to move onwards and upwards, instead of going round in circles, that’s what I want to be doing. I want people to know that I’m still out here, fighting the good fight.

Live In Liverpool is released on October 18 (Ear Music).

A new 56-track, 3-CD P.P. Arnold box set will be released by the Demon Music Group early next year.

For P.P. Arnold UK tour dates this autumn/winter, visit https://pparnold.com/tours-gigs.