Nights In White Satin The Runaway He's Gotta Love Me - Single Live Albums. Greatest Hits Live In London Electric Lady the Deluxe Edition Lilac Wine and Other Big Hits We've Got Tonight the Collection About Elkie Brooks. Similar Artists See All. Barbara Dickson. Leo Sayer. Cilla Black. Dusty Springfield. The New Seekers. Gilbert O'Sullivan. And at every concert there comes that palpable moment when the audience are left almost shell shocked and even Elkie herself knows she has done enough to leave no one unimpressed.
Most truly great artists never recognise what it is that makes them great and Elkie is no exception. To this day, she constantly strives to improve her vocals, her song writing and her performances. She started in the business fighting to be heard and fighting for recognition, she fought hard for her audience, fought to be heard over bad bands, bad songs and bad management but she never gave up, she always carried on her career not really knowing where it would lead.
It is this steely determination and hardened work ethic that has brought her legions of followers and allowed her the rare luxury of a loyal fan base 50 years after she started out on what has been and continues to be an incredible journey.
Elkie was that winner, and that was the start of her life on the road and year one of the 50 year trip. Success at this time eluded her and she was forced down ill-conceived pop routes that would lead to dead ends and for which she had no enthusiasm. Just to pay the rent Elkie endured the cabaret circuit, lightweight pop songs, being packaged as a pop starlet and the pressures from managers which all combined to make her deeply unhappy and to even doubt her own abilities.
Her morale was low and the will to go on was wavering. Around this time the late great Humphrey Lyttelton invited her to be the guest vocalist with his renowned jazz band and here she came into her own, finally finding a direction she was comfortable with.
It was Humph and her love of Jazz that guided her on the road and gave her back the confidence and the belief that one day she would get there. Her relationship with Humph would last the rest of his life, they went on to make albums and perform together on and off for over 40 years. Elkie was deeply touched and honoured to help Humph on his final journey when after singing at his funeral in she was asked to scatter his ashes from a paraglider over the North Devon coast which she has made her home.
The Melody Maker went as far as making her the Face of and she almost arrived big time, but with the break up of Vinegar Joe her journey in that particular direction came to an end. Everybody in the industry knew she was a talented performer who could sing almost any style of music but nobody really knew in what direction she should go next, should it be jazz, blues or rock?
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