Blues and Americana star Elles Bailey is back on the road she calls home, even if it’s just a brief trip

And the star of the British Americana and blues scene was resigned to taking an enforced break from playing live while sitting this out.

But it was the death of legendary country singer John Prine of Covid-19 on April 7 which really brought the scale of the pandemic home to the Bristol-based performer.

‘I'd lived in this little blissful corona-free bubble for about two, three weeks after the tour ended,’ she recalls, ‘and I thought, well this is quite nice, I can sit at home and drink wine, and the sun was out.

‘Then I heard John Prine had coronavirus and I thought: “Oh my gosh we can't lose him…”

‘Then we did. That's when it all hit me and I realised, this is really bad – it's taking away our heroes, and I was absolutely devastated.’

Elles has regularly played one of John’s calling cards, Angel From Montgomery in her live set, and it features on Blacktop Companion, a nine-track ‘continuation’ of her second album-proper, 2019’s The Road I Call Home.

It features four tracks from that album’s sessions as well as songs recorded in special lockdown sessions with her live band.

‘When I was in Nashville last November, I got invited to the Ryman Auditorium for the Americana Awards – second row seats.

‘John Prine and Bonnie Raitt sang Angel From Montgomery about five feet from me, and I bawled my eyes out. It was the most incredible thing. I remember thinking this is so, so special.

‘I've worked a lot with his long-term collaborators, Bobby Wood worked on my Wildfire album (her debut) playing keys, and he wrote Shackles of Love with me, and co-wrote three of the tracks on Road I Call Home. He played on the original Angel from Montgomery.

‘And I'm good friends with Roger Cook, he's from Bristol originally, but lives in Nashville, and he was one of John's best friends.

‘When I heard the news, so many of my friends were devastated. Not only had the Americana community lost one of its icons, but he was everyone's friend as well. It was very tough.’

Elles’ second album was aptly titled for the tour-loving artist, but the lockdown period has made her look back a little differently.

‘I've spent four years running all over the world, going from place to place. This time last year I went from Denmark to Germany, back to the UK, then through to Norway, then was back in the UK after having spent a month in America. It was an insane period,’ she realises she’s forgotten a country: ‘Oh, and then I went to Holland!

‘And now it's: “Well, I might go to the shops today...?”

‘I spend a lot of time thinking about the way I travelled and it will really make me thing twice about air travel – I think I did 10 flights in seven days in August 2019.

‘It's not a great way to travel for the environment and I’ve been reflecting on that.

‘When stuff does come back we need to be more aware of how we're traveling and schedules, I think that will be really important.’

Unable to hit the road, Elles was a keen adopter of live-streaming, with any donations she received, or income from the later ticketed online shows, going to help her ‘tour family’.

‘It all happened so fast, so I started off with live streaming just from my phone, and then I set up through a PA, then I started to delve deeper into getting an interface an a really smart camera and trying to make my own live-stream area as good a quality as it could be in the circumstances, which enabled me to connect with my fanbase.

‘But I must admit by the time we were three months in I was a little bit weary of it all, and I think people were a bit zapped by it all.

‘In July/August I put together a three-part streaming series from a really incredible studio in Weston-super-Mare. The guy who owns it turned it into this amazing streaming studio with seven HD cameras, a full recording desk, real high quality stuff.’

Dubbed the Ain’t Nothing But… shows, Elles recalls: ‘They were so successful, we had T-shirts made up and I treated it kind of like a tour, and it was great. My agent got paid, the studio got paid, and all of the musicians got paid. It was a good way of investing in creative arts at a time when there's not a huge amount of investment.’

In any other year, Elles would have been basking more in the glow of a trio of prestigious awards – song of the year at the UK Americana Awards for Little Piece of Heaven back in January, and album and artist of the year at The UK Blues Awards, which were held online May.

Of the former she says: ‘That was actually in real life with Bob Harris presenting – that was amazing. That was about six weeks before lockdown and it's a memory I hold on to.’

But with the Blues Awards, they couldn't even get physical trophies as the makers had been forced to stop work.

‘I did a video to my phone, which basically sums up the last six months – talking to a glass screen,’ she laughs. ‘I couldn't believe I'd won these awards.’

With most of her autumn touring schedule kicked into the long grass of 2021, Elles is playing a handful of dates in bigger venues that will allow her audience to be socially distanced.

She plays in Crawley on October 25, and is then at The 1865 in Southampton the next night.

It will be her first time in front of an actual audience since March.

‘I have a feeling I'm probably going to cry when I get onstage!

‘I know it sounds bad, but with all of the rising cases, are they going to pull the plug on live music again?

‘I'm really holding my breath as to whether they go ahead, but these venues have put in a lot of time and effort into making them covid secure.

‘I really do hope they go ahead, and when I go onstage for the first time, I think it's going to be a really overwhelming feeling.

‘I was ok with it when my diary was this ghost-like shadow of what it should have been. Now I have something in it to look forward to again, I'm not going to lie, but my anxiety has gone up because I'm so worried about them being cancelled.’

While everything is crossed that the shows go ahead, Elles is working on the follow-up to Road…

‘I was meant to be in Nashvillle in May making album number three. That was obviously cancelled, so then it was: “Maybe September”, and then that was obviously cancelled as well...’

Initially Elles found it hard to write during lockdown.

‘I think it's a heavy thing to put on someone, but someone said to me, as a writer you have a unique way of documenting this time, and it's really important if you've got a talent for writing you should write about it. That really resounded with me, so I thought, maybe I should put my thoughts down on paper?

‘I've written about 40 songs now for the new album.’

‘Touch wood, it's all booked, we're going into the studio in December to record it with my live band here in the UK.

‘It only won't happen if the government has something to say about it.’

With the previous album capturing her lifestyle at the time, has she thought of a name for this one?

‘I think my next album will be called My Comfy Armchair...’ she laughs.

Elles Bailey

The 1865, Southampton

Monday, October 26

the1865.com