Elles Bailey at the Harlington, Fleet

It's rare to find a decent gig taking place near where I live so I was keen to catch Bristol born Americana and blues singer Elles Bailey yesterday afternoon at my local venue, the Harlington in Fleet, Hampshire. She has built quite a reputation in the last few years, having won the Artist of the Year award at the UK Blues Awards in both 2020 and 2021, the UK Song of the Year award at the UK Americana awards for 'Little Piece of Heaven', written with Memphis songwriter Bobby Wood and Dan Auerback of the Black Keys, as well as Album of the Year for her first album 'Road I Call Home' at the UK Blues Awards. She has a new album coming out soon called 'Shining In The Half Light' and a single from that album, 'Cheats and Liars', has received a lot of air play. Elles comes across as a confident singer with a decent voice which at times is reminiscent of Etta James, and her material is interesting, although mostly more Americana than blues. She was impressive on the bluesy 'What's The Matter', and the slower 'Walk Away' was also attractive. She was excellent on a couple of covers - 'I Remember Everything' (John Prine), (with some excellent guitar work), the soulful 'Don't Let The Green Grass Fool You' (Wilson Pickett) and the Highwaymen's 'Crowded Table'. Other stand outs included 'Sunshine City', the upbeat 'Help Somebody', the rock influenced 'Medicine Man' and the Americana of 'Halfway House'. Elles has a good band featuring an excellent guitarist in Joe Wilkins. However the final number of the set with an extended, very loud and monotonous instrumental break, rather spoiled it for me: I could envisage losing my hearing in my remaining good ear by the time it ended. That number excepted, this was an enjoyable show by a singer who is a natural for the AmericanaFest in Nashville, which I went to two years ago, and no doubt has a bright future.

I was also very impressed by the support act Eddy Smith and the 507, who played an acoustic set as a trio which featured Eddy's gruff and powerful voice and some nice harmony from Ricky O'Donnell on guitar and Joshua Davies on tambourine. They are also very much Americana in style with numbers such as 'Lost On You', 'Ticket Out Of Here', The Ballad of Bobby Grey', 'The Middle of Nowhere' and 'The Good Times', amply showing off Eddy's husky vocals. They also look set for big things.