Live Concert Photography: Yola at YouTube Space 7/22/19
I’ve written quite a bit about the he rising Bristol, UK-born, London-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Yola over the course of this year. And as you may recall, the JOVM mainstay has led a rather remarkable life — the sort of life that should eventually be made into an inspiring biopic: Yola grew up extremely poor; but she was fascinated by her mother’s record collection, and by the time she was 4, she knew she wanted to be a performer. Unfortunately, she was actually banned from making music, until she left home. She has overcome being in an abusive relationship, stress-induced voice loss and literally being engulfed in flames in house fire, all of which have inspired her Dan Auerbach-produced full-length debut Walk Through Fire, which was released earlier this year through Easy Eye Sound.
2019 has been a breakthrough year for the Bristol-born, London-based singer/songwriter: she made her New York debut earlier this year at Rockwood Music Hall earlier this year. She played an attention-grabbing SXSW set and she has opened for the likes Kacey Musgraves, Lake Street Dive and Andrew Bird on a select series of US tour dates, which will performances at Newport Folk Festival, Hollywood Bowl, Austin City Limits Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors and Brandi Carlile’s Girls Just Wanna Weekend in Mexico. She played on Mavis Staples traveling birthday celebration tour. And she made her national TV debut on CBS This Morning: Saturday Sessions performing several songs off her full-length debut.
Earlier this week, the JOVM mainstay performed an intimate set at YouTube Space, which was simultaneously filmed. Centered around the material off Walk Through Fire, her debut EP, as well as one of the best covers of Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” I’ve ever heard. Check out photos below.
For these photos and more, check out the Flickr set here: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmFwCHzr
