The first time I ever saw Joan Armatrading was this spellbinding performance on the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1976.
I had heard her many times before, through the obsessive championing of John Peel, who had her in for no fewer than eight sessions dating back to 1972.

I’m not sure I would have known before this that the singer was from the Caribbean; not that it matters.

It’s an instantly captivating song, both musically and lyrically, sitting somewhere between folk and jazz and blues, without really inhabiting any of those genres.

And it made her the first black British woman singer-songwriter to enjoy international success.

The recording features two of Fairport Convention – Dave Mattacks and Jerry Donahue – and the deep male backing vocal (I can’t see if it’s him on the OGWT performance, but it sounds like him!) is by the American actor Clarke Peters, who would go on to become famous as Lester Freamon in The Wire.

Produced by Glyn Johns, Love And Affection brought Armatrading her breakthrough, reaching no.10 in 1976. The lovely alto sax solo is by Jimmy Jewell, whose playing had adorned those hits by Gallagher & Lyle.

I remember buying that year’s self-titled album, including the follow-up single Down To Zero, which inexplicably failed to chart – like her next two, Show Some Emotion and To The Limit.

Evidently re-energised by the punk revolution, she reinvented herself in 1980 as a hard-edged New Wave act and returned to the charts with Me, Myself, I, before moving into bombastsic synth-pop with Steve Lillywhite at the helm for the 1983 hit Drop The Pilot.

Her 1985 album Secret Secrets was more famous for its artwork than its music, with an iconic cover photo by Robert Mapplethorpe.

She’s still going strong, still exploring different genres, and released a great blues album, Into The Blues, in 2007 that earned her a second Grammy nomination after a 21-year gap.