Angelina

Isle of Wight singer and songwriter Angelina Grimshaw draws her musical DNA from country-blues-folk heroes including Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Blind Willie Johnson and Charley Patton. Growing up on the coast, she absorbed sea shanties, gospel, 1920s jazz singers and the deep country blues favoured by her Chinese mother and English father — a hybrid background that gives her music its genuinely rare and ungovernable quality.

Her second album Last Cigarette was recorded in smoky late-night sessions in a golden era studio on the edge of Queen Victoria’s Isle of Wight estate, featuring Little Barrie Cadogan on electric and slide guitar. It earned rave reviews from The Observer, Mojo, Uncut and Q, and was Rough Trade Album of the Month on its release in September 2019. Its success followed her debut Vagabond Saint, a European tour supporting Duke Garwood, recording sessions with Dr Robert, and an invitation to join the Monks Road Social collective — with her track “Golden Day” becoming a BBC Radio favourite for Gary Crowley.

She returned to the Monks Road Social fold for the Rise Up Singing! album, cementing her place as one of the label’s most distinctive and irreplaceable voices.