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Features: Maurice Williams    |    Jo Armstead    |   Chuck Jackson   |   CD Sale   Artists Photo's   |    Links   |    Events    |

From The Cotton Fields Of Mississippi, To The Cotton Club In New York City


Jo Armstead - a soul diva of the highest caliber, of course, but there's so much more to this lady of soul. Writer, actor, clothes designer and even boxing promoter, she seems to thrive on challenge and creating.

Jo has recently finished studying for and gaining a Bachelor of Arts Degree from The New School University in New York, majoring in the liberal arts. 

She is currently working on a number of projects including her autobiography and has just produced a new album which is available now - exclusively from Soulmotion. This is a collection of previously unreleased masters from the period 1974 to 1990. See the bottom of this page for more details.

I caught up with Jo in New York during a cold weekend in March. Although I was slightly nervous about the meeting, I needn't have been anxious. Jo was warm and personable, putting me at ease straight away. I rambled on about I Feel An Urge Coming On being one of my all time favourite records and she was modest and almost dismissive of it as "oh that old thing". 

Many Northern Soul fans will have added this record to their collection many years ago and agree, that it goes in the file labelled Spine Tinglers. It's just one of those records that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.  Click the record label to play.

Listening to Jo rip effortlessly through that song note perfectly is as joyful today as it was over thirty years ago. Up tempo, power vocal and urgent backing group - magical!

As Jo Armstead fans will know, this woman can sing soft and mellow just as well as anyone and her album A Stone Good Lover is a must for any soul library. There is a full track listing at the bottom of the page and it's available now for just £10

Joshie Jo Armstead agreed to, and assisted in the writing of this profile. Enjoy this story of a strong, creative and independent woman with a long and distinguished career in the music business.

Born 8th October 1944 in Yazoo City, Mississippi, USA. Josephine Armstead took early inspiration from her mother, the Reverend Evangelist R.A. Armstead.

"My mother dared to become a minister at a time when it was unheard of for a black woman to enter the pulpit and preach, especially in Mississippi"

Josephine's obvious singing talents were spotted and encouraged by her family from an early age. 

"I started singing gospel at church prayer meetings and later in high school I learned to sing classical music along with a repertoire of Negro Spirituals".

However, despite her weekly church meetings, Josephine was introduced to the raw sounds of The Delta Blues by her grandfather - a bootlegger and gambler nicknamed Shine because of his shiny bald head. 

"By the time I was in my teens, I was sneaking out to cafes, juke joints, and dances on Saturday nights. Blues man Bobby 'Blue' Bland gave me my first opportunity to sing with a band".

Jo recalls those early nightclub performances...

"The amplified sound of the guitar, bass, drums and piano with the horn section blasting away made the tiny nightclub atmosphere infectious. I remember a hot sticky night and my body dripped with sweat. I gave it my all and it was an intimate, hypnotic and totally exhausting experience".

Jo began singing with a local band, Little Melvin & The Downbeats, and decided not to complete her final year of high school to her mother's horror and disappointment. She was still a teenager when she left home joining Ike and Tina Turners backing group - The Ikettes. 

Jo's sister Velma who had previously been married to Ike Turner arranged an audition, so her mother was not too surprised when she decided to leave Yazoo City and go touring with The Ike & Tina Turner Review in late 1961. Josephine cut several records with the Turners and sang on their top twenty hit I'm Blue (The Gong Gong Song).

In 1962 Jo settled in New York where she had family members who had left Mississippi, and were living in Brooklyn. She recorded her first solo work under the name of Dina Johnson. Explaining why she had used another name:

 "Basically, to escape the wrath of Ike Turner." 

She began singing on advertising jingles and doing recording sessions singing background for James Brown, Walter Jackson, B.B. King amongst others. 

During that time she met two singers working at a small club who were billed simply as Val and Nick. This chance meeting with Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson led to a collaboration of writing efforts and one of the first results was the song Let's Get Stoned which was an ode to their hard partying of the time. 

Let's Get Stoned was a number one R&B hit for Ray Charles in 1966 and also reached the top thirty pop charts. Charles also made it into the top fifty R&B chart with their I Don't Need No Doctor later the same year. The trio also wrote for Chuck Jackson and Maxine Brown and came up with the top twenty R&B hit The Real Thing for Tina Brown in 1965.

Eventually Nick & Val went to Motown and Jo went to Chicago where she met and married producer Mel Collins. They produced several R&B hits including Garland Green's Jealous Kinda Fella which made the top 5 R&B chart in 1969 and the top fifty pop chart. 

Jo is also credited with the top ten R&B hit Casanova (You're Playing Days Are Over) for Ruby Andrews. In addition to their own Giant label releases they produced Shirley Wahls and Bobby Hutton. Jo was always more interested in the creative side of the recording business, rather than going on the road to promote her recordings. 

"Even now, I write all the time. I have pens and paper all over the place"

When her marriage to Mel Collins faltered, Josephine returned to New York City and continued writing and working as a singer on commercials. She signed a deal with the Gospel Truth label (a division of Stax) in the mid seventies. Stax was on the verge of financial collapse at the time but none the less she recorded several records under the name Joshie Jo Armstead. Stumbling Blocks And Stepping Stones was a minor hit in the spring of 1974 and I Got The Vibes which received regular plays on the northern soul scene in the UK, but didn't do as well as it could have done commercially.

After leaving Gospel Truth, Jo continued working in the New York studio scene, writing and publishing songs through her company Ideas and Hunches Inc. Her other creative interests include designing women's clothes, which she is by all accounts very good at. 

Jo has also performed in a number of theatre productions and even had a spell managing a boxer from Chicago. In 1972 Jo performed in the Broadway play Don't Play Us Cheap as well as being featured on the soundtrack.

we talked about the Northern Soul thing in the UK and she says, "It's very comforting to know that there are people in another country somewhere, who are listening to artists like myself. There are so many of us whose talent did not equal commercial success. The emergence of Northern Soul is a phenomenon." 

To find out more about Jo Armstead, visit her web site at www.joshiearmstead.com

 

To order either of her CD's, simply send us an email at sales@soulmotion.co.uk

 

 

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