The career of Bristol-born and raised singer Yolanda Quartey reached new heights last weekend with the release of the new Elvis movie. Making her big screen debut, alongside Tom Hanks and Austin Butler, she portrays Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the black musician credited as the “godmother of rock and roll” and sings the groundbreaking 1945 hit, Strange Things Happening Every Day.
On Sunday, the artist now simply known as Yola and based in the country music capital of Nashville, USA, closed the Leftfield stage at Glastonbury. She’s sung at her home county festival in various guises over the last two decades, but never before as a solo artist. She delivered numbers from her two Grammy-nominated Americana albums, the most recent being 2021’s Stand for Myself.
Bristol folk will probably remember her best as the fabulous frontwoman with the city’s ace country soul band Phantom Limb and sometime vocalist with Massive Attack in the 2000s. She may be moving in different circles these days - performing alongside globally celebrated artists including childhood heroine Dolly Parton and Brandi Carlile - but Yola has never forgotten the community that helped to shape her and fuel her ambitions.
