“I’vealways been determined” AN AUDIENCE WITH PP ARNOLD
“I’ve sung ‘The First Cut Is The Deepest’ thousands of times, but it’s still fresh for me”
THE extraordinary, meandering musical career of PP Arnold is best summed up by the way she answers a question about why she moved to Spain in the late ’90s. Her fascinating response takes in her role in Olivier Award-winning musical Once On This Island, a chance meeting with Chaz Jankel in the Andalucian hills, and Roger Waters rescuing her from financial limbo by advancing her a deposit on a house in Salobreña.
The story is typical of the ebullient 72-year-old singer, who seems to have crossed paths with everyone in music at one time or another. Yet despite the support of big hitters such as Barry Gibb, Eric Clapton and Paul Weller, it’s taken 51 years for Arnold to release a proper follow-up to the two albums she recorded for Andrew Loog Oldham’s Immediate label in the late ’60s. “I think I’m a good singer,” she says modestly, “but I haven’t
