British blues queen Elles Bailey, who has won successive UKBlues Artist Of The Year awards, will release her next album, Shining In The Half Light, in early 2022. Today the single Cheats And Liars has been released along with news of a late 2021 UK Tour.
Cheats And Liars finds Elles standing up for the musical community during these COVID-19 times. “It’s about the people in their ivory towers who told us arts don’t matter,” Elles told MetalTalk, “and to go and retrain.
“Thirty-eight per cent of musicians, including myself, didn’t get any kind of government funding, and some people lost everything. It’s been quite hard watching how arts has been undervalued at a time when that was what was bringing people together.”
Cheats And Liars is available from distrokid.com
Lockdown
Bailey was busy during the lockdown, releasing several cover version live streams titled Ain’t Nothing But. The resulting album was nominated as Blues Album Of The Year in 2021, an award she won for her album second album, Road I Call Home, in 2020.
The lockdown was liberating for Elles, as she used the time to record this third album. she managed to turn lockdown into liberation. “Shining In The Half Light is the first album I’ve made here in the UK,’ Elles says. “I was six months pregnant when we tracked it, and it was made right in the middle of a pandemic. It still sounds like an Elles Bailey record, but it does feel like it’s expanded and been given a new perspective. My band is on fire as well.”
Positivity
The album title also reflects the positivity that she was determined to pay forward in dark times. “It’s called Shining In The Half Light,” Elles says, “because there we all were, in this time of complete uncertainty, fear, worry and isolation, and yet artists were still putting themselves on a screen, warts and all, and that brought people together, breaking down barriers and creating a special connection.
“I was so inspired by all the musicians and poets and everyone who was like, ‘I don’t quite know how to do me in this time, but I’m going to try anyway.’ That, to me, is what the album is about. Being inspired in a time that was quite frankly, really uninspiring.”
Livestream
Elles Bailey will perform a full band live stream. “We all know that I got fully involved with streaming during the lockdowns,” Elles says, “bringing you different shows with different line-ups, but I was never able to get the full band back together.
“This has finally been rectified! On 24 September 2021, I will bring you a never been seen before 8-piece Bailey extravaganza, showcasing songs from my new record.”
Tickets are available now and allow you to watch up to 72 hours after the event.
Elles will also perform on a seventeen date tour later this year. The tour starts in Bristol on 8 October and runs through to Gateshead on 11 December. The 4 December Bath show is sold out.
Elles wil play Joe Bonamassa’s Keep the Blues Alive at Sea Cruise in August 2022.
