{"id":5593,"date":"2022-07-29T14:07:53","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T13:07:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shindig-magazine.com\/?p=5593"},"modified":"2022-07-29T14:07:53","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T13:07:53","slug":"pp-arnold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/?p=5593","title":{"rendered":"PP Arnold – Brand New Day: The First Lady Of Immediate Records"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a short successful career on Immediate PP ARNOLD found herself up stream without a paddle. Material for a proposed third album, now out under the title The Turning <\/em>Tide, was recorded for Robert Stigwood under the tutelage of both Barry Gibb and Eric Clapton, with sessions with Mick Jagger following. <\/strong><\/p>\n

THOMAS PATTERSON finds out when and why the tide stopped coming in<\/strong><\/p>\n

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As 1968 bled into 1969, PP Arnold, the first lady of Immediate Records, should have been flying high. The one time Ikette had moved to England with her young children in \u201966, and in a staggeringly small amount of time, signed to Andrew Loog Oldham and Tony Calder\u2019s label Immediate, recorded two solo albums The First Lady Of Immediate<\/em> and Kafunta<\/em>, and provided vocals on a string of classic recordings by label mates including Chris Farlowe and The Small Faces. Still only 22, the future was bright\u2026 and then Immediate collapsed in a morass of financial impropriety.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just as surprised as all the artists,\u201d Arnold says, looking back on events that would shape the next five years of her career. \u201cI think we were all in a state of a shock because it all happened in a sudden. There was this whole stable of artists and we were all quite friendly and close with each other and suddenly Immediate was no more and everybody scattered, searching for new homes, new labels, new management and things like that. Personally, I was just lost, because I didn\u2019t really know the whole scene. I never knew how the whole networking thing happened, because I had my kids with me, and when I wasn\u2019t working, I was with my kids. I was never a real party girl that went out and knew everything that was going on.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cSteve Marriott, we were like brother and sister. That\u2019s how I found out there was a problem (with Immediate). Steve fell out with Andrew and Tony, so I found out from Steve. Next thing I knew it had folded. And then everybody disappeared. Andrew disappeared, Tony Calder, I think he went to Antigua with all the tracks [laughs], or something like that. I don\u2019t know what those guys do when something like that goes down! Of course, I knew nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her most recent album Kafunta<\/em> should have pushed her into the big time. Recorded with Loog Oldham, and featuring arrangements courtesy of John Paul Jones, it was filled with gorgeous covers of crowd-pleasers like \u2018God Only Knows\u2019, \u2018Yesterday\u2019 and \u2018Angel Of The Morning\u2019, but poor distribution and Immediate\u2019s collapse doomed it to commercial failure. Adrift in London, Arnold was, in her own words, \u201clost\u201d, but luckily one particular cover version from Kafunta<\/em> had caught the ear of its composer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI met Jim Morris, who was a friend of Kim Gardner, the bass player,\u201d Arnold explains, \u201cand Jim knew Barry Gibb. I had recorded \u2018To Love Somebody\u2019 on the Kafunta<\/em> album, and Barry liked my version. Jim introduced me to Barry, because Jim worked for [Bee Gee\u2019s manager] Robert Stigwood. He was his driver, PA, right hand man. Jim and I became an item, we got married and Barry was Jim\u2019s best man at the wedding. We hadn\u2019t really planned on getting married but I had big problems staying in the country. I had to keep going out of the country. We were in love and everything but we hadn\u2019t planned on getting married. We decided that it would be a good thing. I had to be in the country because I now had my children with me and my children were in school. It meant that not only me but my kids would have to keep going in and out of the country as well. So, Jim and I got married.<\/p>\n