Joan Armatrading

If you can listen to "Down to Zero" without calling to mind Tracy Chapman's debut album, you either have remarkable powers of concentration or your synapses just aren't firing. In any event, Joan Armatrading ventured into this richly textured musical territory a dozen years before Chapman ever entered a recording studio.

Whether in acoustic or electric mode, Joan Armatrading's voice conveys fire and emotion without ever crossing the line into overt histrionics, unlike certain contemporary singers we could name. And when she wants to be reserved and cool, as in "Water with the Wine," she can chill with the best of them.

One of the great musical mysteries of the '70s and '80s, Joan Armatrading was so warmly embraced in the U.K., yet so comparatively unknown in the States. Her most popular album in the U.S., Me Myself, I, barely managed to scrape into the Top 30. She deserved much better.

Born in St. Kitts and emigrating to London at the age of eight, Joan Armatrading has one of the most distinctive voices in, um, well, pop music, broadly speaking. She's kind of a folkie, but there are elements of reggae and soul in her delivery. Producers Glyn (Who's Next, Sticky Fingers) Johns and Steve (Peter Gabriel's 3, U2's War) Lillywhite lent their talents to about half of her albums, but she never really broke through Stateside. Pity.