Whoever listens to Yolanda Quartey or simply Yola for the first time, would probably not suspect at first listen that she comes from England. It would be more likely that she was born and raised in the southern part of the United States, where country soul is still very much alive. Yola sounds like she comes from a place where the clock has stopped somewhere in the 60's and artists perform on a
… stage protected by a solid layer of chicken wire as a precaution against personal injury. There she plays country soul, sometimes with the emphasis on country, sometimes on soul, with an occasional excursion to disco. The fact that she sounds like that's her natural environment is, of course, due in no small part to the production direction of Dan Auerbach, who, with her debut Walk Through Fire (2019), promptly conscripted Yola into the artist stable of his private playground, the label Easy Eye Sound. (AD)more
