Joan Armatrading is a loner,… but she's as matter-of-fact about it as she is about everything else: she just likes to be by herself. "I wanna be a big shot / And have ninety cars," she sings in the title tune of Me Myself I. "I wanna have a boyfriend / And a girl / For laughs / But only on Saturday / Six days to be alone / With just me myself I."

Armatrading's stubborn independence serves her well both as emotional armor and aesthetic fuel. Her songs often make a point of drawing lines around relationships—indeed, her most famous composition, the 1976 minor hit, "Love and Affection," laid down strict distinctions between romance and friendship. But she doesn't make such distinctions simply to keep people away. Instead, she seems determined not to allow her deepest feelings to be mistaken for facile moon-June lyricism. When she bares her soul, she wants it to...