Elles Bailey Talks Beneath The Neon Glow and Upcoming Shows
UK-based multi-genre artist Elles Bailey is one of the over 50 artists who will be taking place in The Cheltenham Jazz Festival coming up from the 30th of April through the 5th of May this year, and she’s celebrating the autumn 2024 release of her Americana, blues, and rock-leaning album Beneath The Neon Glow. It’s also an album for which she’s currently on tour and will continue to be following the festival. Additionally, she’s recently announced a special edition of her album, titled Beneath The Neon Glow Reimagined, which features all the album tracks, including two bonus tracks, recorded with just vocals and piano parts, and will arrive on April 25th, 2025.
I caught up with Elles just after she’d arrived back in the UK from Nashville, following a celebration of the 85th birthday of Judy Collins, and we spoke about the role of roots music at festivals, learning from mentors, and the ways in which live performance has impacted her perception of the tracks from Beneath The Neon Glow.
Americana Highways: Your most recent album, Beneath the Neon Glow, seems like a big statement from a songwriting perspective. I saw that you sometimes travel to Nashville. Was it recorded there?
Elles Bailey: My last two albums were recorded in Devon, whereas my first two were mainly made in Nashville. There’s an amazing studio down there called Middlefarm Studios. It’s just a piece of magic, and creaky, and you can hear the creaking. We record to tape and it’s just really authentic sounding. It captures something special and feels like a musical home for me.
AH: It’s great to have some continuity and be able to return. Was that recorded with your live band?
EB: My live band recorded my last two albums with me: Shining in the Half-Light and Beneath The Neon Glow. I loved making Shining in the Half-Light so much that I wanted to go back to Middlefarm and do it all again, but I said, “Let’s not make the same album.” I’m really pleased with it. It had moved on, which is what I want as an artist, to always be moving.
AH: Looking at The Cheltenham Jazz Festival line up, I think it’s really interesting that multi-genre artists like yourself are being brought in, making the umbrella quite broad. What do you think of the festival being so wide-ranging?
EB: I’ll tell you a story to answer that. I’ve been to Nashville nine times now, and I only just got back, but this time I finally went to the Country Music Hall of Fame, and it was so inspirational. They’ve got posters all around on the first floor, and one of them is a poster of Johnny Cash, along with a note from Bruce Springsteen that says, “Johnny, I want to send out a big thanks for the inspiration. You took the social consciousness from Folk music, the gravity and the humor from Country music, and the rebellion out of Rock ‘n’ Roll. And you taught us young guys that, not only was it okay to tear up all those lines and boundaries, but that it was important.” I just feel like that sums up exactly how I feel about music.
Also, I feel very lucky because I have played The Millport Country Music Festival, which is the British country music festival, AmericanaFest, and many, many folk festivals. I’ve also played quite a few jazz festivals, and many rock festivals, and many, many blues festivals. These are all festivals with rock, blues, country, or jazz in the title, and yet I am just me. [Laughs] It’s a cross-pollination of music and sound, and I feel very lucky that I can play these festivals that are all these things.
AH: There are some genres and approaches that don’t overtly have a roots music connection, though they may have if you dig down, but I think it’s great when an artist can be open about their roots music influences and own that.
EB: I think, regardless of trajectory, we have to honor the people who have gone before us. I love the history of music. It’s such a rich tapestry of how the roots of music have changed over the years. There’s the very early blues has ended up as the pop R&B that we hear today. These artists may not all know the history of that, but that’s where it started.
There are so many people from different countries who fuse their cultures into these types of music, and it just creates this incredible story. It’s a story that we get to hear and learn about! Obviously, I am an artist that shouts about my roots, but I do also like to say that I don’t want to be bound by one genre, because I don’t think that sums me up. But I am very aware of the artists that have gone before me, and the sounds that they’ve created that have helped shape my sound.
AH: Are there older or contemporary artists who have shaped how you perform or record? I know that going to so many festivals, you must see a lot of different acts and their performance styles.
EB: Totally. You’ve got to learn from what you see. You see people do stuff and think, “That’s cool. I could do my stuff better.” I got to see Judy Collins, who is 85, at her 85th birthday celebration in Nashville. It was amazing watching how she commanded a stage! I thought, “You are one classy lady. There’s a reason why you are still performing! You know how to have a crowd in your hand!” It was like watching a living legend. I loved watching her and learning from her. She can still hit all those high notes! What a badass!
AH: I love that. It’s so cool when the older artists are still there for us, to be that source of wisdom and inspiration, but also because we’re still learning from what they have to teach.
EB: I’ve had the pleasure of performing wit Judy a couple of times now, and I also had the pleasure of meeting her back stage at Glastonbury last year. Every time I’ve met her, she’s so generous with her time. I never want to take up anyone’s time, because it’s precious. But she was just so welcoming, and made us feel totally at ease. If I’m still performing at 85, and I’ve had a career like that, what a dream that would be! But I hope I’m still as cool as she is, and down to earth, and there’s a lot to learn from that.
AH: It says a lot when someone has managed to live in music that long, just on the human level. It’s a balancing act, and it’s important to see those who have survived it.
EB: It’s definitely a balancing act!
AH: When I look at your touring dates, I see that you have tour dates for Beneath The Neon Glow all around The Cheltenham Festival. Is the festival going to feature the album, since you’re still touring it?
EB: I have to make that decision, and I haven’t totally made that decision yet. We announced Beneath the Neon Glow last April, so as the singles came out, we were feeding them into the festival set. Which is quite scary to do, to introduce them to audiences at a festival! But it was a real mixture of previous songs. But, obviously, the album is now out there, and we sound killer playing it, so I want to give it a go! Are people going to mind? I may mix it up, who knows?
AH: That’s a double-edged sword for building up your catalog! More choices to make.
EB: Cheltenham is also a 45-minute set, and I haven’t got any jazz numbers.
AH: This album has a lot of energy, so I can definitely see playing it live. Each song also has a fine point to it, as if there’s something that you really want to say. I think that would go down well live.
EB: I really wanted to make this album a foot-tapper, and something that you would listen to while you drive. That driving music really works on a festival stage, I think. You want people to immediately be tapping along.
AH: Has playing this album out already affected how you view the songs?
EB: I’ve loved reliving these songs every night, and seeing how fans have related to this album in ways in which they might not have on previous albums. Every night that we play “Silhouette in a Sunset,” I see someone crying. And that is an album track, not a single, so it reminds me that people have really loved the album as a body of work and that they come out to support the album. That feels really special.
AH: I feel like each of the songs has a key idea or feeling that’s pretty accessible. “Enjoy the Ride” is very upbeat, for instance, and silences a lot of anxieties that we might feel about goals in life and whether we have achieved them. “Love Yourself” is also something we hear a lot, but exploring it is important.
EB: I think that we hear that a lot, to love ourselves, but how do we learn to do that? Because we don’t love ourselves all day, every day. It’s a learning curve. Some days, you’re going to do better than others!
AH: Do you have any other plans coming up that we should know about?
EB: When we released the album, which is ten tracks, at the same time, I released a deluxe version, which is 16 or 17 tracks. Now, we’re actually releasing two of the songs that didn’t make the main album, but were recorded in the same session. They could have made the main album, we just couldn’t fit them all on the album. “Who Needs the Weather” is out now, and “Hate That I Love You” will come out in April.
Also, we’ve just announced that we’ve recorded the whole album, including the two extra deluxe tracks, with just vocals and piano. It’s called Beneath The Neon Glow Reimagined. Because they don’t have the long outros, I’ve managed to just squeeze them on vinyl! That’s going to be coming out on April 25th, 2025.
Thanks very much for chatting with us, Elles Bailey! More information can be found here on her website: https://www.ellesbailey.com/
Elles Bailey performs at this year’s Cheltenham Jazz Festival, which runs from Wednesday 30 April – Monday 5 May 2025. Find details here: https://www.cheltenhamfestivals.org/festivals/jazz-festival