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A hard
rocking, high-voltage blues guitarist most often compared
to Stevie Ray Vaughan, Tinsley Ellis is hardly one of
the legions of imitators that comparison might imply.
Schooled in a variety of Southern musical styles, Ellis
draws not only from fiery Vaughan-style blues-rock,
but also Texas bluesmen like Freddie King and Clarence
"Gatemouth" Brown, the soulful blues of B.B.
King, the funky grit of Memphis soul, and numerous other
electric bluesmen. Ellis has been praised in many quarters
for the relentless, storming intensity of his sound,
and criticized in others for his relative lack of pacing
and dynamic contrast (he's also been dubbed a much stronger
guitarist than vocalist). Yet no matter which side of
the fence one falls on, it's generally acknowledged
that Ellis remains a formidable instrumentalist and
a genuine student of the blues.
Tinsley Ellis was born in Atlanta in 1957, and spent
most of his childhood in southern Florida. He began
playing guitar in elementary school, first discovering
the blues through the flagship bands of the British
blues boom: John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, the
Peter Green-led Fleetwood Mac, the Yardbirds, the Rolling
Stones, and so on. He soon moved on to a wide variety
of original sources, becoming especially fond of B.B.
King and Freddie King. After high school, Ellis moved
back to Atlanta in 1975 to attend Emory University,
and soon found work on the local music scene, joining
a bar band called the Alley Cats (which also featured
future Fabulous Thunderbird Preston Hubbard). In 1981,
Ellis co-founded the Heartfixers with singer/harmonica
player Chicago Bob Nelson, and they recorded an eponymous
debut album for the tiny Southland imprint. They soon
signed with the slightly larger Landslide and issued
Live at the Moon Shadow in 1983, by which point they
were one of the most popular live blues acts in the
South. However, Nelson left the group shortly after
the album's release, and Ellis took over lead vocal
chores.
The Heartfixers' first project in their new incarnation
was backing up blues shouter Nappy Brown on his well-received
1984 comeback album Tore Up. Ellis debuted his vocals
on record on the Heartfixers' 1986 LP Cool on It, which
brought him to the attention of Alligator Records. Ellis
left the Heartfixers to sign with Alligator as a solo
artist in 1988, and they picked up his solo debut Georgia
Blue for distribution. The album helped make Ellis a
fixture on the blues circuit, and he toured heavily
behind it, establishing a hard-working pattern he would
follow for most of his career. The follow-up Fanning
the Flames appeared in 1989 and explored similar territory.
1992's Trouble Time helped land Ellis on album rock
radio thanks to the track "Highwayman," but
it was 1994's Storm Warning that really broke Ellis
to a wider blues-rock audience, earning more media attention
than any of his previous recordings; additionally, guitar
prodigy Jonny Lang later covered Ellis' "A Quitter
Never Wins" on Lie to Me. For 1997's Fire It Up,
Ellis worked with legendary blues-rock producer Tom
Dowd (the Allman Brothers, Derek & the Dominoes),
as well as Booker T. & the MG's bassist Donald "Duck"
Dunn. Ellis subsequently left Alligator and signed with
Capricorn; unfortunately, shortly after the release
of 2000's Kingpin, Capricorn went bankrupt, leaving
the album high and dry. Still, Ellis soon caught on
with Telarc, returning with Hell or High Water in 2002. |
