JOAN Armatrading's first solo concert series will be the end of her touring days too. As chance would have it, the first night will be in Pocklington.

"'I will never retire, but this will be the last major tour that I will undertake," says Joan, who will play Pocklington Arts Centre on September 20 and 29 and Harrogate Royal Hall on November 4.

"For the first time, these concerts will be me solo on stage playing the guitar, piano and singing. I want these concerts to be a special, lively, interactive, one-to-one experience. I have absolutely enjoyed the past 42 years of performances but now, with my final major tour, I want to capture a unique memory for both myself and the audience."

There is time to absorb Joan's decision because the series of British concerts does not begin until autumn and the world leg will keep her on the road into 2015.

At 63, the St Kitts-born Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading MBE is sure her decision is right. "It's not my last performance, but the trouble with major tours is that they're always world tours and they always last a long time. Four or five days on, one day off, and that day off is usually taken up with interviews, so that's not really a day off. It's literally a year's touring," says Joan.

"By the time I finish I'll be 65 and I don't want to be on the road 18 months at a time after that, though I will still do concerts, just not on tours."

You sense there is no going back.

"It will all go, all the touring. The reason that a tour lasts so long is that I have to go to all these places," she says. " I've been to every state in America, and that just tells you that when I say they're long tours, that's why they're so long."

Joan does not know how she will feel when the last tour show is over.

"I haven't given that any thought yet because what I need to do is concentrate on this tour first," she says.

"What I do know is that I'll be quite emotional about these shows and that's why I'm doing them in this way: a world tour on my own," she says. "I've always taken the a band with me before, but purposely I'm doing this tour to give myself an intimate memory. I've no idea just how emotional it will be, but it will be."

The solo format is conducive to chatter.

"I'll be doing some talking but it won't be a lecture," says Joan. "I've always spoken to my audience and they to me, but this time I'll try to say more about the different years of my career and what I was doing at that time."

She has yet to settle on how to present her songs alone on stage.

"When I write, I write and arrange all the songs, thinking of all the parts for the band to play... but with this solo show, it'll just be me; the music will have to be amplified but but still interesting, so I'm having to think about how to arrange the songs for just me to play."

Sometimes less will be more. "Sometimes, more is not good; sometimes you don't want to fill every space. Sometimes, you just hit a chord and let it ring out."

Joan, who moved to the Birmingham slums from the Caribbean at the age of seven and began writing songs at 14, has a multitude of Armatrading music from 42 years from which to pick her set list.

"That will be my problem. It's very, very difficult. I've got 14 songs that won't change; it's the rest that I have to decide," she says.

"On the last tour with the band, I worked from a set list each night, but the problem with playing on my own is that I won't have any breaks, whereas when it's with the band, I can have a rest, put the guitar down a little.

"It's different with this new show. I'll have to build the dynamics in advance and leave it at that because it will be a very different experience. I haven't played piano on stage since the 1970s. It's a different feeling. The last time I tried to do that , I got as far as the rehearsals, then I chickened out."

Piano posture contrasts with guitar posture when singing. "Standing or sitting affects a musician's breathing pattern," says Joan.

Will there be a new album to accompany the tour?

"The way I write is that I write when I feel like writing. At the moment, it's not hitting me and I never force something, but if I don't write something before the tour, then I definitely will after that," says Joan.

"What I write about hasn't changed. I write about people, the emotional pull between them, and I always finish everything I write, good or bad, and then keep or reject it. Some I write on piano, some on guitar; that hasn't changed either, and when I write, it has to be at home. I need to have quiet. I can't write on the road; there's too much going on, too many distractions."

Joan Armatrading has penned such songs as Love And Affection, Down To Zero, Willow, Me Myself And I, All The Way From America, I'm Lucky, No Love and Drop The Pilot, but says she "can't tell you her favourite".

"The one I'm very fond of because of what it's done to my career is Love And Affection. That song is so special to me and to many people, and I have to own up to the opening lines being pretty cool."

" I am not in love," the song goes, "But I'm open to persuasion." Love is the eternal subject of popular music, never bettered than on Love And Affection, a number ten hit in 1976. "That's why we're here; to communicate with each other," says Joan. "When you're looking at the scenery as a writer, that's fine, but when you write about someone, about how they make you feel, that's very much the essence of who we are."

Joan Armatrading plays Pocklington Arts Centre on September 20 and 29, 8pm; both sold out. Tickets are still available for Harrogate Royal Hall on November 4, 8pm; box office, 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk