FRESH from following in the footsteps of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton in America’s capital of country music, Eloise Rees is back performing in her home city of Oxford.
The singer-songwriter is at Oxford’s Gathering Festival on Saturday after flying back from Nashville, Tennessee.
She was one of just three acts picked by BBC Introducing representing the UK at Nashvilles’s Americana Festival last month.
- Listen to a live version of Escape From Static
BBC Introducing was set up in 2007 to help promote unsigned and undiscovered artists. They can upload their music to the website in the hope they are spotted by the BBC or other industry experts.
The 22-year-old contemporary-folk artist said: “Playing the festival was a dream come true, I’ve wanted to go since I was 14 but never thought I would make there as an act.
“We played the Hard Rock Café where so many legendary acts had played and we were truly thrilled to step in their footsteps.
“It is nice to be back though. I began by playing to audiences in Oxford so it feels much more like home. The Oxford music venues have a great atmosphere, the crowds are so welcoming.”
The former King Alfred’s schoolgirl, from Wantage, is at Truck Store in Cowley Road performing at 4pm on Saturday and The Jericho Tavern next Thursday.
She is also back in her South Oxfordshire recording studio working on her next new EP.
Gathering Festival organiser Isla Miskelly said: “It’s good to have her here. We are really supportive of local talent so her success is brilliant news.”
Miss Rees was picked by BBC Introducing for the annual Americana music festival, hosted by BBC Radio 2 presenter “Whispering” Bob Harris, known for hosting BBC2’s The Old Grey Whistle Test in the ’70s and ’80s.
Mr Harris, from Steventon, said: “Eloise was really nervous but she did brilliantly. It was only later I discovered she is actually very close to us here in Oxfordshire.”
Miss Rees added: “I was definitely the minnow in a pond of big fish, but the big fish were a shoal of kind, talented, benevolent inclusive big fish, whose support and warmth I will never forget.”
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