Cork (Ireland) born singer-songwriter, Elly O’Keeffe, has just released her latest single, Remember Who You Were, and we here at the Send Me Your Ears studio have taken the opportunity to have a few listens today.
For fans of powerful female blues rock artists such as Samantha Fish, Joanne Shaw Taylor, and Susan Tedeschi, this is most definitely a track for you.
Starting on just acoustic guitar strums, you could be fooled into thinking that this track will be a simple singer-songwriter roots track, but it quickly develops into a full band sound, and by the time you’re halfway through the first verse there’s so much happening that you realise that this artist has more to offer than you first thought.
This is a characterful blues-rock song with some great incidental guitar fills. We love how the bass guitar is used for fills on a few occasions too. Harmonies flood the song in the choruses and the rise and fall of the track takes the listener on a real anthemic journey.
There’s a brief half-time section that builds into an exhilarating drum fill to stop and then blast back in with Elly’s powerful vocals.
The guitar solo is fast and interesting and for fans of blues rock guitar solos that fly along at breakneck speed then you need to hear this! With an interesting chord progression that helps to maintain interest throughout, this is a song that blues-rockers will undoubtedly gravitate towards.
As always, with any female blues-rock track, it is the voice that is the key. Elly’s vocals are powerful and passionate. Drenched in reverb and displaying a restraint at the start, the vocals gain momentum and power as the song goes on, before reaching some superb belt moments and controlled head voice just before the guitar solo.
From a production perspective, we feel that a boost around 65-70Hz would thicken up the kick drum and fill out the low end. There are some slightly dominant tones in the vocal track so a small EQ cut around 600Hz would help bring that under control. More compression on the vocal track would level it out and help the lyrics to come through a little clearer. Some extra brightness and presence could be achieved as well with a wide boost across the high mids and highs centred around 5-6kHz. A light compressor/limiter and some make up gain would thicken up the whole track as well as add some extra volume.
If you’re a fan of blues rock and you’re seeking out your next female vocalist to listen to then look no further than Elly O’Keeffe. Remember Who You Were is a track that we anticipate will bring Elly plenty of new fans.