ELLES BAILEY - Can’t Take My Story Away

Three-time winner of Artist of the Year at the UK Blues Awards, inducted into the UK Blues Hall of Fame, and reaching number twelve on the 2025 sales charts with her first album for Cooking Vinyl (her seventh overall, counting two live records), Elles Bailey is a British singer still little known outside her home country, but her new album "Can't Take My Story Away" has everything it takes to finally broaden the Bristol musician's following.

The artist builds on what she explored with her previous record "Beneath The Neon Glow". Backed by a scratchy, passionate voice, Elles Bailey tackles the malleability of country–soul with vigour, aiming for a less academic, more gripping musicality. With a voice some critics have compared to Janis Joplin and Etta James, whose husky timbre is reportedly the result of a severe bout of pneumonia in her youth, Elles Bailey turns to a more direct and versatile style of songwriting for the most personal and autobiographical album of her career.

It's no coincidence that Walter Trout and Van Morrison asked the English singer-songwriter to open some dates on their tours; to appreciate her qualities, one need only listen to the two tracks that preceded the album's release: the fluid funk–blues songwriting of "Growing Roots" and the skilful blend of blues and pop-rock lightness in "Better Days".

The energetic rock-blues of "Take A Step Back", with its rich horn section and an excellent vocal performance, the powerful soul groove of "Angel" and the passionate title track keep the tension running high throughout, underlining an expressive maturity that Bailey has achieved by shaking off the clichés of her past.

Even the ballads steer clear of well-worn formulas: first with a melody full of shifting harmonic changes that weave together acoustic guitar, an elegant string section, a discreet and flawless rhythm section, a jazz-scented acoustic bassline, and a refrain that leaves its mark ("Blessed"), then with the unsettling blues of "Costant Need To Keep Going", which unfolds over a dark, hypnotic groove evoking both Massive Attack and the Ry Cooder of "Paris, Texas".

Cut from the same cloth, the album's two closing tracks "Tightrope" and "Starling" are country-soul ballads rich in harmonic and tonal shifts, rounding off a solid yet bold work — a rock-blues record that even non-fans of the genre will have no trouble enjoying.

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01/03/2026