The artwork for Soul Survivor: A Life in Song – P.P. Arnold’s sweeping new boxset celebrating her 60-year career – is profoundly moving. In the foreground, a recent profile of Arnold captures her in quiet contemplation – eyes closed, serene. Behind her, gently faded, are portraits from the sessions for her debut album, The First Lady of Immediate, and its follow-up, Kafunta. For the latter, she wore a striking West African-inspired headdress, a look she describes as making her feel like an “African angel”.

Patricia Ann Cole was born in California and, like many of her soul singer contemporaries, was raised in the church. A serendipitous phone call would lead to her joining the Ike and Tina Turner Revue as an Ikette. The Revue would take her to the UK where, at the behest of Mick Jagger, she stayed for several years, performing with rock band Small Faces and embarking on a solo career.

She has certainly suffered some rotten bad luck. Her first label – Immediate – went bust. Album projects were aborted and the masters lost for decades. She has suffered professional setbacks and personal tragedy, which she cogently relays in her autobiography Soul Survivor, for which this new boxset is a companion piece.

But P.P. Arnold has come out on top. Seemingly lost music has been unearthed, her fans flock to her concerts, and her voice – sweet yet earthy, utterly recognisable – still drips with soul. To mark the release of the boxset, The House That Soul Built sat down with Arnold to reflect on her life as a soul survivor.

Q&A – This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity

You’ve had the most extraordinary career. Is it fair to say it all began with the Ike and Tina Turner Revue as an Ikette?  

Absolutely. I never planned on being in the music industry. I did grow up in a family of gospel singers, so I always sang, but I was a young girl, and I had got caught up in a real sort of horrible situation. I was groomed as a young girl, and was forced to get married, and I was in a very abusive marriage. I just said a prayer one morning and asked God to show me a way out. I was in my laundry room doing my laundry for the working week ahead. I had two kids. I worked two jobs. I got a phone call from another singer, Maxine Smith, who later sang with Joe Cocker and loads of people. She was an ex-girlfriend of my brother’s. And then, two hours later, I’m in Tina’s room, singing ‘Dancing in the Streets’. That’s how it started for me. That was just such a blessing – to be able to start my career working with the one of the best female artists in the industry. Even back then – she has always been “simply the best”.

And what did you learn from that experience?

I learned everything about being on the road, living on the road. Black artists were on the road all the time. That’s how they survived. We would be on the road for like 90 days. I learned about projecting, just being live on stage with amazing musicians and learning my craft.

The Revue took you to the UK at which point you left the Revue to go solo. How did you go about figuring out your own sound?

I didn’t really know that much about my voice, really, until I came to the UK. I could just always sing. Aretha was the [main] influence. But I love singing ballads, too. So there was that Aretha Franklin side of me; Dionne Warwick and Bacharach / David was the other influence. Andrew [Loog] Oldham [the manager of the Rolling Stones, who signed Arnold to his label Immediate] picked up on all of that, and so I was able to do some very beautiful ballads on the First Lady of Immediate album. Even though I’m American, I’ve been produced by British producers. So I’ve kind of got my own lane that I’m really pleased about. I have a lot more of a poppy influence in my sound, which is really cool!

In your book you discuss your love for Stax and Motown, and you mentioned singing ‘Dancing in the Streets’ for Ike & Tina. Did you ever try and make it with those labels?

Well, not really because the unexpected has always ruled in my life. I knew nothing about the business. I was a very shy, very introverted, damaged young woman. So I never knew how to network or hustle. In a way, I paid my dues later. In the beginning, by the grace of God, all these things were happening for me. I didn’t have a vision for myself. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was lucky enough to connect with these souls that liked my voice.

It must have been quite special having such an early hit with ‘First Cut is the Deepest’ in the UK when you were so new to the country?

Fairly new to the country, fairly new to the business, fairly new to that life! ‘Everything’s Gonna Be Alright’ was the first single but it didn’t really hit. When I heard ‘First Cut’, I could relate to it. It was like [Yusuf/Cat Stevens] had written that song for me. It described my situation, my life situation. It wasn’t a big hit [it peaked at No.18] – Immediate had a lot of distribution problems.

But it’s really stood the test of time. Obviously, Rod Stewart and then Sheryl Crow did popular versions.

Rod did it ten years after me. I don’t think Sheryl was even born when I did it [Crow was, in fact, 5 years old when Arnold’s version came out]. I just did a gig with Yusuf recently and he still thinks that my version is the definitive version. I’ll only do a cover if I can relate to the story.

By the time you arrived in the UK, there was a prominent crop of blue-eyed soul singers – Dusty Springfield, Lulu, maybe Cilla Black etc. Did you consider them, or were you made to consider them, as competition?

I don’t compete with anybody, and I didn’t really know those singers. I knew Dusty, she was a mate. Dusty and Madeline Bell are singing background vocals on the Mick Jagger productions that I did [e.g. ‘Treat Me Like a Lady’, ‘It Hurts Me Badly’]. I was an outsider, to a degree, but I never had any problems. I had my soul sisters, I was quite tight with Madeline and Doris Troy and the Flirtations, Viola Billups and Ernestine Pearce.

Let’s talk about your work in musical theatre. Did you always have aspirations to work in theatre?

No! I’m telling you: my whole life, my whole career is all about the unexpected. That’s what was offered to me. After spending two years doing this album with Barry Gibb – [Turning Tide, Arnold’s “lost” album produced by Barry Gibb and Eric Clapton in the late-1960s but which was shelved and only finally released in 2017] – suddenly it was boom. It was just over like that, and I needed to work. So that’s what was offered to me. [Arnold’s first theatre production was rock musical Catch My Soul, in 1970.]

One of my favourite songs on the new boxset is ‘The Human Heart’ from Once on this Island (1994). Tell me about your experience working on that show.

Not only was it quite unusual as an all-Black show on the West End, but we also won the Olivier award! But they had closed our show down before we were nominated. We won, but the producers didn’t even give us a drinks party to celebrate or anything, and I was really upset. That was a pretty demanding show. I was playing Erzulie [the goddess of love], and then I was a peasant girl, and I was also a bird and I had to climb. That show was just amazing.

You’ve had lots of ups and downs. You describe the seventies as your “lost decade”. It feels like now, perhaps like Bettye LaVette, you’re getting the most recognition and appreciation compared to any previous point in your career, is that fair to say?

I have very loyal fans. They’ve stuck with me. I do my own management. I’ve been lucky that I have a good team that has supported the releases of stuff like the Turning Tide release.

I was supposed to do Glastonbury in 2020, and then COVID happened. I was lucky that they asked me to do it again. I’m grateful. I’m going to be doing my “Soul Survivor” show at the Edinburgh Festival.

I’m curious about the previously unreleased stuff on the boxset that we haven’t heard before. Is there something that you’re particularly proud of, or that you’re particularly excited for everyone to hear?

I’m really excited about the Chaz Jankel recordings. That all happened just out of the blue. I first met Chaz when I came back to the UK in the mid-80s, and we really hit it off musically. But I didn’t get a chance to work with him, because I was with this idiot guitar player who was stupid, jealous about nothing because me and Chaz are just music. [Years later in Frigiliana, Spain,] I just happened to run into Chaz. We made arrangements to record together when we got back to London, and we recorded about 10 tracks. So we’ve got about 5 of those tracks on this album, and ‘Salobreña’ [where Arnold lives] was the catalyst to us really working together. I told him I wrote this song, and he loves Spanish guitar.

I’m just glad that anything that has never been heard is being heard. There’s still a lot more to come. I just wake up every morning in gratitude. Every day something comes up that I didn’t know was going to happen.

Soul Survivor – A Life In Song, is out now on Demon Records. P.P. Arnold will be touring in the spring, check her website for details: www.pparnold.com