The Mix
20 | Rolling Stone | September 2019 PHOTOGRAPHS BY Sacha Lecca
I
T WAS HARD to miss Yola at July’s New-
port Folk Festival. The brightly dressed,
earthy-voiced singer appeared on mul-
tiple stages at the legendary Rhode Island
event, dropping in on sets by the Highwomen
— where she got the biggest cheers of the
supergroup’s show — and Dolly Parton, who
welcomed Yola for a raucous group singa-
long of “9 to 5.” She also drew an overflowing
crowd to her own side-stage performance,
delivering a deeply moving set of country-soul
originals. “Yola is a force unlike any we’ve ever
seen in this genre,” says Brandi Carlile, who
considers Yola an “honorary member” of her
group Highwomen.
This kind of thing has been happening a
lot this year, since the 36-year-old released
Walk Through Fire. Her debut LP combines
the lush heartbreak of Sixties torch songs
with Nashville rootsiness, telling the story
of a deeply painful relationship and how the
singer-songwriter got out of it. (See “Walk
Through Fire,” where Yola sings, “My bags
are packed, and I’m ready/I think I’m gonna
make a run, oh, Lord.”) The album earned
her an opening slot on the latest leg of Kacey
Musgraves’ “Oh, What a World” Tour —when Musgraves made the announcement,
she called Yola an “icon.” “Every other day,
something really awesome has been happen-
ing,” Yola says. “It feels totally abnormal.”
Yola’s breakthrough comes after years
of what she calls “being kept in my box.”
She grew up in Bristol, England, and had a
strained relationship with her mother, who
died in 2013. (Yola attributes the tension,
in part, to her mother’s “traits of psycho-
pathy.”) After graduating from a “demi-
fancy” grammar school she attended on
scholarship, Yola became involved with Lon-
don’s dance-music scene. Over the next de-
cade, she lived several musical lives: as a top-FAST FACTS
ALL I WANNA DO
The first artist she
ever covered, at
age 14, was Sheryl
Crow, whom Yola
recently joined
onstage.
20 FEET FROM
STARDOM As a
backup singer,
she worked with
Ludacris and the
Chemical Brothers.YOLAWHEN CAGE THE ELEPHANT went into the studio to make their
first album, singer Matt Shultz had one note for their producer:
“‘I want to sound like Beck’s ‘Loser,’ ” he remembers saying.
Now, Cage are touring with their hero on their Night Running
tour, a double bill that recalls the monster alt-rock tours of the
Nineties. “I can’t say enough about how blown away I’ve been,”
says Shultz of Beck, who’s been opening with “Loser” before
blasting through uptempo classics like “Devil’s Haircut.” Cage
are drawing heavily from their dark, New Wave-y new album,
Social Cues, with a high-concept perfor-
mance that has Shultz stripping seven
layers of clothing off his body through-
out the set. “I’m trying to show people
that I’m loved no matter what state I’m
in, whether I’m covered in layers or
completely naked,” he says. PATRICK DOYLE
ON THE ROAD
Cage & Beck’s
Big Adventure
BACK TO THE SHACK
Above: Matt arrives at
an intimate radio per-
formance at Chicago’s
Reggies. “We do one
of those every day,”
says Brad.Wild sets, big hits: A day in the life of one
of the biggest tours of the summer
UNCAGED
“He’s tapping
into something
right now that’s
bigger than our
band,” says Brad
Shultz of his
brother Matt.
“It’s inspiring.”