Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Singer-songwriter best known for powerful, vulnerable songs about love and loneliness; arrived from the Caribbean at age seven.
On the island
Eight records
I saw Ella Fitzgerald. At Ronnie Scott's, and it was brilliant. It was like watching my mum. So she sings better than my mum.
Madame GeorgeFavourite
I think Van Morrison is so important to me because he was the first well, he was the first album that I ever bought.
Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Lorin Maazel
This is my music that I do my hoovering to, my housework to
Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, conducted by Erich Kunzel
Music to Wake You Up on the Desert Island.
Vienna State Opera Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Sir Georg Solti
yep, this is another Hoover record.
I really like Muddy Waters. He's he's one of the people that I wish I could have met. I love his his voice and his way of playing uh the guitar and the way he looked.
In conversation
Presenter asks
4:16You came to Britain at the age of seven from the Caribbean, all by yourself?
Yes, all on my own, in a big aeroplane. um, with the stewardess looking after me all the way, and I had one of those signs on my neck hanging from a piece of string. Say my name and probably my flight number and stuff. And whenever I go on planes and I see little kids like that, it always makes me think of me. It was quite scary, you know.
Presenter asks
5:45Can you remember your first impressions of Britain?
Well, I remember I remember getting off the plane and I remember getting on a bus and getting to New Street... and my mum meeting me there, and I had two big sties under my eyes. And I remember my mum meeting me and being very upset that I had these thighs and she was sort of really upset that I wasn't as well as she thought I should have been... And not long after that... I saw snow. Which is brilliant, never seen it before.
Presenter asks
8:23When did the music begin for you then, Joan? Can you remember?
I say I started at fourteen. It might might be a little bit earlier. And I started 'Cause of my mother getting a piano... And I just started to play it, and I just made up little bits and tunes and stuff. And and I didn't start out by By learning things that I knew um or learning uh sort of pop songs and things like that. I just started out playing my own stuff.
The keepsakes
Presenter asks
10:49Were you influenced by all of that [the early sixties pop scene], or were you always, always just doing your own thing, writing your own stuff?
Yeah, I always I always wrote my own sti. I never was a big fan of anybody's... But I I didn't get into that. And I think Van Morrison is so important to me because he was the first well, he was the first album that I ever bought. And I think I would be twenty or something. Which is quite late to be buying um an album.
Presenter asks
18:53There's a recurrent theme of of loneliness [in your songs]. I mean is that part of you?
No... I'm not... Really a lonely sort of person. I remember when I was When I was younger Around about the time, say when I was twenty, twenty one, I remember being lonely. It's about the only time I can remember feeling lonely... I was lonely for something. I didn't really know what it was. Maybe maybe my music has sort of sorted that part out.
Presenter asks
28:28Are you ambitious still for something?
Yes, it's still f uh for my work, me and every other songwriter. Try to write the song that will last forever. You know, in a hundred years' time they'll be playing whatever this song is.
“I think a desert island would actually suit me. Took me, um Quite a while to get used to people.”
“I tend to look at people as um as people. You know. I'm I am aware of the color of my skin and and as I've said before, I like it. I think it's great. It a lot of colors suit it, you know.”
“I'm not an exhibitionist. So as much as people Might have said to me, Well, Joan... maybe you sh you should wear a strapless, backless evening gown or something... that wasn't gonna work for me because I really would have been paralyzed because I I would have been totally uncomfortable.”
“I write about what I feel I'm capable of writing. Which is about emotion... generally observation, uh, looking at people and seeing the different emotions and traumas and Whatever it is they're going through.”