doing what she loves
Elle Haley – feels very fortunate doing what she loves
Elle Haley was born in Westfield, New Jersey to parents Drew and Kim Haley. Her ‘large family’ includes brothers, Brennan and James, sister Emma and over 30 cousins.
In 2012, when Elle was thirteen years old, she had a liver transplant due to an autoimmune issue. Her father donated part of his liver to save her life. Since that time, she has been immune compromised and, in 2021, was one the first to receive COVID vaccines.
After graduating high school in 2017, she studied a year in Totnes, England at the Totnes School of Guitar Making. It took her almost three months to make her first guitar which she still has. She returned to the U.S., attending Gettysburg College, a private liberal arts school in Pennsylvania, through 2020.
After COVID, Elle decided to try Key West. The family has been visiting and enjoying Key West since she was a small child. Her mother bought a home in the mid-90s and her grandfather lived in Key West in the 80s, and worked as a pool cleaner.
Elle began waiting tables to pay rent and has been in Key West for about three years. Key West musician Jack Wolf was one of her first friends and was a big help getting her started in music performance. He would encourage her on stage to sing while he performed at Willie T’s. He eased her into it more and more, finally handing her his guitar and turned her loose solo.
Later, Jack said the Pier House was looking for a performer for a Saturday gig. He invited her to his Pier House gig to sing a few songs as an audition. Her first gig there was August 8, 2021. On January 14, 2025, Elle Haley won the Key West Music Award for Best Vocalist. Ironically, the same award was won by Jack Wolf’s wife, Kari Wolf, in 2024.
Elle finds the people of Key West to be non-judgmental for the most part and very laid back. She enjoys the routine of performing at similar places every week, but sometimes it feels like Groundhog Day and she has to get off the rock to change things up a bit. She performs at private parties and only recently performed at Hampton Beach, New York, her only performance outside of Key West.
She feels very fortunate to work 3-4 hours a day doing what she loves. There are days when she is in a bad mood or not really wanting to perform but usually after a few songs, she can’t remember why she was in a bad mood. She currently knows up to 500 songs well enough to perform and the list is growing.
Elle specializes in Americana music and favors no particular genre. Audiences are ever changing but she prefers an audience that she can connect with. By that, she means the kind of audience that wants to feel something from the music and not just from the alcohol. She loves performing at Halo at the Saint Hotel. Her audience at the Saint Hotel is usually those that hear her from Duval Street below and come up to enjoy her music.
Recently, Elle opened for Nick Norman at the Key West Theater. He was one of the first musicians that she followed in Key West. She was also invited on stage with the Durtbags at Rick’s Entertainment Complex and sang a Taylor Swift song, “Love Story – she’s a huge Taylor Swift fan. She also performed on Morning Magazine with Joe Moore on 104.1 FM
Before Elle began to perform in Key West, she would watch local performers live streaming and would try to pick up techniques and learn. She recently started live streaming her own performances on Instagram and now has viewers from the Midwest and as far away as Germany. She is beginning to know some of her followers well enough to play one of their favorite songs before they even request it.
Live Streaming is becoming very popular and a great way for an artist to connect with their fans not to mention a huge source for potential revenue. Singer, songwriter and Grammy nominee Billie Eilish has 122 million Instagram followers and just began doing live streams and communicating directly with her fans.
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