PP Arnold: The vocalist who brought soul to the swinging sixties
A positive melting pot of sound, the 1960s saw the birth of countless different artists and genres, from hippie psychedelia to the Merseybeat sound, which went on to dominate the globe. In the United States, however, the pop charts of the 1960s were dominated by the sweet sounds of soul and R&B, with labels like Motown, Stax, and Atlantic launching a plethora of utterly iconic stars. Back in dreary Britain, however, audiences took a little longer to be convinced of the life-affirming power of soul, and PP Arnold led the way.
Britain, traditionally, is not naturally inclined to the power, optimism, and deep-rooted emotion of soul music. Particularly during the post-war period, the nation seemed to be perpetually clad in grey smog and brown tweed, and the most exciting music on offer came from a George Formby rip-off down the local working man’s club on a Friday night. That all changed when the 1960s rolled around, however. A new generation of Britons was desperate to distance themselves from that rather depressing landscape, striving for a future of vibrant colour and exciting sounds.
It was the mod subculture that first adopted soul music, filling the airwaves of nightclubs like The Flamingo in Soho with the energetic sounds of artists from across the Atlantic. By the mid-1960s, soul nightclubs, dancehalls, and all-nighters were a hip trend among Britain’s youth, and even The Beatles flirted with the style on their With the Beatles album, covering a handful of Motown classics.
Aside from those imported records, and the efforts of blue-eyed soul vocalists like Dusty Springfield, though, Britain didn’t have its own authentic soul voice until Patricia Arnold set foot on UK shores in 1966.
Coming from a family of gospel singers in Los Angeles, PP Arnold had been honing her vocal skills since childhood, culminating in an incredibly powerful, richly soulful singing style which put her in the upper echelons of America’s soul talent during the 1960s. Nevertheless, she spent much of the early part of the decade as a backing singer for Ike and Tina Turner, largely resigned to the background.
Then, after a UK tour with The Rolling Stones in 1966, Arnold bravely quit the Ike and Ike & Tina Turner Revue and settled in London, using the skills taught to her by Tina as the basis for her own solo career. Along the way, she found help in the form of The Stones’ enigmatic frontman Mick Jagger, who hooked the vocalist up with manager Andrew Loog Oldham and his newly established independent record label, Immediate Records.
Immediate was the hippest record label of the 1960s, owned and operated by the same music-obsessed kids populating the nightclubs and all-night dances of England’s capital; no label had ever been run like that before, and the financial disaster that it ended up being prevented many from attempting to do the same thing. For a brief moment, however, Immediate was the home of Britain’s most exciting, revolutionary artists, and PP Arnold was at the centre of it all.
Not only did she achieve a string of hits for Immediate, the most notable perhaps being her recording of the Yusuf/Cat Stevens-penned ‘The First Cut is the Deepest’, or the 1967 track ‘Everything’s Gonna Be Alright’, which was later adopted by the northern soul scene, but she also influenced the development of Immediate’s other artists. For instance, she toured alongside Small Faces throughout the late 1960s, striking up a close relationship with Steve Marriott and singing backing vocals on ‘Itchycoo Park’ and ‘Tin Soldier’ in the process.
Arnold’s career continued after the demise of Immediate Records, with the vocalist fostering an incredible, expansive career that has seen her work with everybody from Barry Gibb to Steel Pulse. She was even adopted by the acid house scene of the late 1980s, owing to collaborations with the likes of The Beatmasters and the KLF. However, it was her impact on the British music scene of the 1960s that cemented her as a true musical icon. After all, she helped bring the soul to one of the most vibrant and inventive periods in the cultural history of the nation, and her extensive discography has certainly stood the test of time.
