Orphan Country - Yola Carter
Our next LCM featured singer-songwriter has been making waves in UK Country. Based just outside Bristol, Yola Carter has just released her critically acclaimed new Country Soul EP 'Orphan Offering'. Our LCM #TrackOfTheDay is a very good live version of 'Orphan Country'.
Yola is coming to London on Monday night (December 19th) at the Borderline, she will be joined by the always great Danni Nicholls and Emily Barker. If you are going, I'll see you there.
From her late teens, Yola Carter (born Yolanda Quartey) quickly earned credibility and respect throughout the industry as one of the U.K's top Singers and a uniquely gifted Songwriter. As a lover of Soul and Country music her influences include The Staple Singers, Crosby Stills Nash and Young, The Band and Otis Redding. Carter found that her soul voice was the first to get attention and graduated quickly to touring internationally straight out of school with critically acclaimed acts such as Bugz in the Attic on their world tour and later Massive Attack most notably headlining The Glastonbury Festival's Other Stage Live on the BBC to 60,000 people. Other notable supports and live collaborations include The McCrary Sisters, The Fairfield Four, Willie Watson, Jan Howard, James Brown, Elizabeth Cooke and The legendary Staxx Band with whom she duetted "Knock on Wood" live with Eddie Floyd.
As a songwriter able to apply her soul sound across genres, she soon found herself being asked to write for people as well as record. She moved to London for short stint as her career as a writer began. She was being asked to deliver her unique gospel style by writing and singing on numerous Pop projects during this period working with acts like Chase and Status, DJ Fresh, Katy Perry, Duke Dumont and wrote the lead single "Hopes and Fears" for Will Young's Album The Hits as a pop writer. As an artist she collaborated with Nitin Sawhney's on his concept masterpiece "Last Days of Meaning" that previewed at the Royal Hall and centered on a stunning performance from the legendary John Hurt following the epic metaphorical Dickensian journey of a lonely intransigent man.
Somehow all at the same time she was asked to join Country-Rock band called Phantom Limb based in her hometown of Bristol UK. Originally intended as a side project for the member who belonged to separate bands as writers and producers, Yola took to plying her soul voice to the project and writing from her country soul heart. The Band originally rocky in style and styling began to morph into a country soul outfit, though never completely shedding its rock roots. As the front woman and top line writer Yola Carter co-wrote two albums with the band the eponymous debut album "Phantom Limb" and the later more countrified effort of "The Pines" produced my Marc Ford of The Black Crowes and supported acts such as Dr John, Solomon Burke and Candy Staton. She recorded two Studio albums with the band in the eight years it lasted and left the band in December 2012.
Yola Carter has since combined her two skill sets of singer-writer and writer producer to produce her debut solo EP "Orphan Offering" out this Year, and is already working on her debut album "Orphan Country", alongside contributing backing vocals on the album of the award winning folk singer-songwriter and frontman of Lau, Kris Drever. 2016 will see a return to the touring with dates throughout the Summer for Yola Carter, including supports of St Paul and The Broken Bones, Sam outlaw and Imelda Mae, and a focus on this much anticipated debut album.
http://yolacarter.com