ABOUT
At 6 feet 2 inches tall, capped with a mane of flaxen hair, Phoebe Elliot is hard to miss. And with the upcoming launch of her album, Write Home, the award winning singer songwriter reminds her listeners she won’t apologize for claiming space. Elliot strides into her native element.
It’s been five years since Phoebe Elliot released her last album. But longtime listeners won’t be surprised: Write Home is worth the wait.
Since her 2019 release of the EP This is Who I Am, Elliot has walked through a sea change. She left Nashville, where she lived for 9 years, and set her sights on LA. It was a place she’d called home before.
Back in her early 20s, Los Angeles had piqued Elliot’s creativity. Almost a decade later, the artist found herself drawn back by the city’s magnetic pull. In LA, Elliot reconnected with her old bandmates. Energized by the city’s diverse music and arts scene, she penned new lyrics and experimented with fresh genres. Something was stirring in her.
And yet, something was missing, too. It took Elliot a year and half to figure out what that something was. On a cool morning at a beach in Santa Monica, the tide washed over her with a simple truth: she was ready to come home. To her real home, St. Louis.
Elliot had spent her 20s and the first half of her 30s moving at full force. She had garnered prime press coverage, won songwriting awards, and worked with top-shelf musicians, producers, and songwriters. The thing was: it wasn’t enough. Elliot didn’t just have a career. She had a life. She wanted to root herself— build a home, nurture a family. And she wanted to do those things where she had been raised, in her words “tall like the grass and free like the wide Missouri.”
When Elliot got clear on her values, she realized she had been chasing a dream that was no longer her own. It belonged to a younger singer, the Phoebe who flew from her nest to make a name and place for herself in the world. The Elliot of today knew she already had a place; she had nothing to prove; she belonged. So she packed up her apartment and headed east, homeward bound.
Elliot’s latest album chronicles that turning point, and all the magical, marvelous, and mundane things that came of it. Write Home, with its stripped down lyrics, offers an intimate glimpse into the last few years of Elliot’s life. Listeners get a front row seat as Elliot builds a community in St. Louis, re-meets and then marries a high school classmate, and settles down, this time for the long haul.
On Write Home, Elliot reunites with producer and fellow midwesterner Greg LaFollette to deliver an honest and soulful collection of songs that tell a familiar story: how the artist left home, found herself, and returned to her roots to start the next chapter of her journey. With simple and organic production, these tracks echo past albums, but her writing is wiser and bolder than before.
Elliot’s previous album Beating of My Heart, won two Independent Music Awards for “Best Acoustic Song” and “People’s Choice.” The singer songwriter was also a finalist in the esteemed NewSong Contest, affording her the opportunity to perform at NYC’s iconic Lincoln Center. Elliot has been featured in St. Louis Magazine and the taste making outlet American Songwriter. Follow Phoebe Elliot on Instagram for more news and updates.
By Kate Bradley