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Tinsley Ellis
 H
ard-rocking blues-soaked
guitarist/vocalist/song-writer Tinsley Ellis sings and plays with the energy
and soul of all the great Southern musicians who have come before him. Ellis
attacks his music with rock power and blues feeling, following in the tradition
of
Deep
South
musical heroes Duane Allman, Freddie King, Derek Trucks and Warren Haynes. His
live shows feature extended fretwork filled with melodic and rhythmic
experimentation, in the spirit of jam bands like his friends Widespread Panic
and The Allman Brothers.
Atlanta Magazine declared Ellis "the most
significant blues artist to emerge from Atlanta since Blind Willie
McTell," Since first hitting the national scene with his Alligator Records
debut, GEORGIA BLUE in 1988, Ellis has toured non-stop and continued to release
one critically acclaimed album after another. His stellar guitar work, always a
staple of his live shows and CDs, is matched by his strong songwriting and
powerful, soulful vocals. Tinsley's hometown paper,
The Atlanta Journal
Constitution, calls his music, "a potent, amazing trip through
electric blues-rock."
Ellis made five critically acclaimed
albums for Alligator between 1988 and 1997 before recording for the Capricorn
and Telarc labels. But now he's back with the incendiary, high-energy
LlVE-HIGHWAYMAN, the long-awaited live album his fans have been demanding for
years. The CD is overflowing with over 77 minutes of music, making this the
longest single release in Alligator's catalog. Ellis recorded two nights of
performances at Chord On Blues in
St. Charles
,
IL
, a suburb of
Chicago
, on March 25 and 26, 2005. The CD
is an Ellis fan's dream-come-true, because as great as he is in the studio,
it's the stage where Ellis really fires it up. At the recording, he burned
hotter than ever, taking his band and his audience to spine-chilling heights.
Ellis' original songs, extended soloing and heartfelt singing brought his
audience to its feet early and kept them shouting and dancing all night long.
Both Ellis and his co-producer,
Alligator president Bruce Iglauer, are thrilled to be working together again.
"Tinsley is one of the finest younger generation blues rockers. He's made
great albums for us in the past, and we're excited to have him back in the
Alligator family. He's great in the studio, but even bettor live, so I'm really
excited about this recording," said Iglauer. And Ellis is in total
agreement. "This is the most rocking, most guitar-driven CD I've ever
made. And I'm beyond proud that it's on Alligator."
Born in
Atlanta
in 1957, Ellis grew up in southern
Florida
and first played guitar at age
eight. He found the blues through the backdoor of the British Invasion bands
like The Yardbirds, The Animals, Cream, and The Rolling Stones. He especially
loved the Kings— Freddie, B.B. and Albert—and spent hours immersing himself in
their music. His love for the blues solidified when he was 14. At a B.B. King
performance, Tinsley sat mesmerized in the front row. When B.B. broke a string
on Lucille, he changed it without missing a beat, and handed the broken string
to Ellis. After the show, B.B. came out and talked with fans, further
impressing Tinsley with his warmth and down-to-earth attitude. By now Tinsley's
fate was sealed; he had to become a blues guitarist. And yes, he still has that
string.
Already an accomplished teenaged
musician, Ellis left
Florida
and returned to
Atlanta
in 1975. He soon joined the Alley
Cats, a gritty blues band that included Preston Hubbard (of Fabulous
Thunderbirds fame). In 1981, along with veteran blues singer and harpist
Chicago Bob Nelson, Tinsley formed The Hearlfixers, a group that would become
Atlanta
's top-drawing blues band. Upon
hearing
Live At The Moonshadow (Landslide), the band's second release,
The
Washington Post declared, "Tinsley Ellis is a legitimate guitar
hero." After cutting two more Heartfixers albums for Landslide,
Cool On
It (featuring Tinsley's vocal debut) and
Tore Up (with vocals by
blues shouter Nappy Brown), Ellis was ready to head out on his own. Ellis sent
a copy of the master tape for his solo debut to Bruce Iglauer at Alligator
Records. "I had heard
Cool On It," recalls Iglauer, "and
I was amazed. I hadn't heard Tinsley before, but he played like the guys with
huge international reputations. It wasn't just his raw power; it was his taste and
maturity that got to me. It had the power of rock but felt like the blues. I
knew I wanted to hear more of this guy."
GEORGIA BLUE, Tinsley's first
Alligator release, hit an unprepared public by surprise in 1988. Critics and
fans quickly agreed that a new and original guitar hero had emerged.
"Dazzling musicianship pitched somewhere between the exhilarating
volatility of rock and roll and the passion of urban blues," raved the
Los Angeles
Times.
Before long, Alligator arranged to
reissue COOL ON IT and TORE UP, thus exposing Tinsley's blistering earlier
music to a growing fan base.
The Chicago Tribune celebrated the release
by saying, "Ellis takes classic, Southern blues-rock workouts and jolts
them to new life with a torrid axe barrage."
Tinsley's next release, 1989's
FANNING THE FLAMES, further expanded the guitarist's hero status. By now his
talents as a songwriter equaled his guitar prowess.
Guitar World
shouted, "Ellis stands alongside Stevie Ray Vaughan and Johnny Winter, and
that ain’t just hype." 1992's TROUBLE TIME added guests Peter Buck
(R.E.M.) and keyboardist Chuck Leavell (Rolling Stones), and brought even more
critical acclaim Ellis' way. The song
Highwayman received airplay on
commercial rock radio stations across the country. "Alive, kicking and
drenched in sweat," declared
The
Washington
Post.
1994's STORM WARNING was Ellis' true
break-through. Recorded live in thie studio with his road-savvy band and
produced by Eddy Offord (John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Yes), the album was a
tour-de-force of smoking guitar workouts and radio-friendly blues
rockers. Features and reviews ran in
Rolling
Stone, The
Chicago
Tribune, The
Washington
Post, The
Los Angeles
Times, The
Boston
Globe,
and in many other national and
regional publications. His largest audience by far came when NBC Sports ran a
feature on
Atlanta
's best blues guitarist during their
1996 Summer Olympic Coverage viewed by millions of people all over the world.
FIRE IT UP followed in 199/.
Produced by the legendary Tom Dowd (Allman Brothers, Ray Charles.) The album
featured Ellis' blazing guitar playing and expressive, soulful vocals in better
form than ever, With Dowd's deft production touch-— along with Tinsley's fiery
road band and a host of talented musicians, including famed bassist Donald "Duck"
Dunn on seven songs—Ellis reached new heights, coming up with some of the best
performances of his career.
The Associated Press called the CD, "A
solid heaping of blues...a mixture of well-written originals and covers all
held together with scorching guitar and a big voice to carry his sharply
written lyrics."
A move to Capricorn Records in 2000
saw Ellis revisiting his Southern roots with
Kingpin. Unfortunately,
the label folded soon after the CD's release. In 2002, he joined the Telarc
label, producing two well-received albums of soul-drenched blues-rock,
Hell
Or High Water and
The
Hard Way
.
All the while, Ellis never slopped touring. "A
musician never got famous staying home," he's quick to note.
Ellis has played in all 50 states,
as well as
Canada
,
Europe
,
Australia
and
South America
. Whether he's out with his own band
or sharing stages with The Allman Brothers, Robert Cray, Koko Taylor or
Widespread Panic, he averages over 150 performances a year, bringing his
fast-moving, high-energy, guitar-drenched performances to fans all over the
world. Live, there's simply no one better at igniting a crowd, jamming with
focus and purpose. L IVE-HIGHWAYMAN captures Tinsley Ellis' ferocious live
power for the very first time.
DISCOGRAPHY
LIVE-HIGHWAYMAN
2005 (Alligator)
THE HARD WAY
2004 (Telarc)
HELL OR HIGH WATER
2002 (Telarc)
KINGPIN
2000 (Capricorn)
FIRE IT UP
1997 (Alligator)
STORM WARNING
1994 (Alligator)
TROUBLE TIME
1992 (Alligalor)
FANNING THE FLAMES
1989 (Alligator)
GEORGIA BLUE
1988 (Alligator)
COOL ON IT
1986 (Landslide/reissued on
Alligator)
Official Website
Show Schedule
MP3 Sample Tracks:
Highway Man
To The Devil for a Dime
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