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insley Ellis is a road dawg, a guitar gypsy wandering the world Tspreading the gospel of soulful, rockin’ blues. Born in , Ellis grew up in South Florida but came back to go to college in Atlanta and never left. Starting out in 1977 with the Alley Cats, then teaming up with harpist in 1981 as The Heartfi xers, Ellis soul-soaked blues and stinging Strat work has fi lled 19 albums with blistering blues- rock. Ellis made a living from an East Coast loop that carried him from Atlanta through North Carolina, often playing at the Rhinoceros club in Greensboro. He wasn’t there the night in ‘85 when Bruce Springsteen stopped after a coliseum gig on his Born in the USA tour and played “Hang On Sloopy” and “Stand by Me” with the Del Fuegos. But he did strike up a friendship and working relationship with a couple of Greensboro-based musicians, former sideman and saxophonist Jimmy Carpenter. “THE blues guy there is Bob Margolin,” says Ellis, who has known Margolin since the late ‘70s. “We did that Blues at the Crossroads tour (in 2013), and he was my mentor, sharing stuff he had learned from Muddy and stuff he had learned with Son House. We did 10 shows, me and him with and the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Jody Williams all over America. Rode in a bus, kicked back on the tour bus, had bunks and everything and Bob and I said ,‘We’d better savor this, cause it’s back in the vans we go in a coupla weeks.’” Ellis has high praise for Carpenter, ( and the We were still in a period of Southern through my Super Reverb. I still to this Drivers, Walter “Wolfman” Washington, Rock, Dickie Betts and people like that day play that same guitar, that same Eric Lindell, and Mike Zito and the with their Les Pauls and long hair and amp, among other guitars, other amps, Wheel) also touring with Ellis in ‘98. “One buckskins, and here comes Stevie but I tour with that equipment, and I of the greatest sax players on the circuit. Ray, he’s all pimped out and playing a never changed the settings after he sat I really thought when Bobby Keys died, Stratocaster, that was pretty unheard of, in. I could tell you the settings....” he he had a shot, or even the big man with other guys playing Les Pauls at the time, says, with a dramatic pause for effect,

Springsteen, ‘cause he plays that kind of and he just blew our minds.” “but then I’d have to kill you. People who ALL PHOTOGRAPHY © MARILYN STRINGER sax, not a lot of scales or anything, just a Vaughan did several shows and come out and see me play, they get close lot of honkin’ tenor.” sat in, but the last time he came back and enough, they can read the settings on my But one of the most impressive played at the Downtown Cafe, they only super reverb.” encounters Ellis ever had was with Stevie made $35 dollars for the night. “Slept on Ellis wasn’t the only guitarist Ray Vaughan when they both were just our fl oor, had no money,” Ellis recalls. infl uenced by Vaughan’s passage starting out. “He came through in ‘79 the “They were spozed to play there two through Atlanta. “The Vaughan brothers fi rst time and played a show at the Capri nights, and they just said, ‘The hell with came through Atlanta in the late ‘70s, Theater in Buckhead with Bill Sheffi eld’s this,’ and went back to Austin.” and all the Les Paul players went out and band, the XL’s, that was Double Trouble, But he did leave Ellis with a bought Stratocasters. Pretty interesting sat in with us in ‘81 when I was in the souvenir he still treasures and uses. “He phenomenon. And the price went through Heartfi xers,” Ellis says. “We’d never seen got up on stage and played my Strat the roof on ‘em too. In the late ‘70s, that anything like before. 20 - Blues Music Magazine - JANUARY 2017 Have A Question? Call 1- 855 - US BLUES Featured In Blues Music Magazine January 2017 Subscribe @ www.BluesMusicMagazine.com Or Call Toll Free: 1- (855) US BLUES

‘59 Strat I play was $700 bucks. That About,” sounding like Leon Russell on was all the money I had.” his Mad Dogs and Englishmen period. Ellis’ assets have increased “Finally I’m talking to a writer who somewhat since then, but his Strat and a recognizes that,” he laughs. “That’s ‘60s ES-345 are still his go-to instruments exactly where it’s from, the era when on the road and in the studio. “That’s the Leon Russell was producing Freddie kind of guitar that and B.B. King, Texas Cannonball (Shelter, 1972.) King made a lot of their recordings on,” Leon Russell’s one of my favorite song he says of his vintage Gibson. “Between writers, and it was about time I got busted those two guitars, I can get pretty much on that one.” all the sounds I want for a blues or a He says McKendree’s piano is blues- rock show.” “not quite rockabilly, kind of an amped-up They’re not just pretty toys to Ray Charles sound, and Kevin nails it, he hang on the wall or look at under glass. always knows with my recordings when I T “I’m always dragging these things all want him to do that, which is pretty much over the country,” Ellis says. “I record all the time.” and tour with ‘em. I don’t leave ‘em at The tune Ellis wrote with Oliver home. They go with me and they stay Wood some ten years ago, “Giving It with me. If I didn’t have those two guitars, Up,” sounds like a tribute to Delbert seriously, I would just hang it up. They’re McClinton. “I defi nitely did a little Delbert- irreplaceable. Like a stock car would be. style harmonica playing on it, which is I E So many modifi cations, and then you a nice harmonica style, sort of a Jimmy take the modifi cation away, you restore it Reed,” Ellis says. to stock, then you modify it again, Right “I’ve never really been an now it’s pretty much restored to stock, innovator, but I’m not a copycat either,” but that’s subject to change.” Ellis says. “Pop culture is driven by two Over the years, Ellis’ sound things, driven by youth, driven by image, has remained pretty much the same, so I’m pretty much screwed then. I N L fi ery blues backed with soulful vocals. really always wanted to say that in an But during his tenure, interview.” Ellis says that if you don’t he wanted a change-up and label head make it in your 20s in the pop music Bruce Iglauer wasn’t agreeable. “There’s world, then you better bring something to a James Taylor in me just dying to get the table like songwriting because rock out,” Ellis chuckles. “They wanted me to and roll is for young, long-haired skinny S be Hound Dog Taylor, not James.” T h e people. “When you start looking regular, L split from Alligator resulted from an idea then you start looking like the audience’s Ellis had in 2012 to do an instrumental parents, so musicianship becomes more album, 2013’s Get It. Alligator was important.” skeptical, so Ellis started his own label.” He also puts a premium on He jokes that his own label was skeptical apprenticeship. “Seems like lately, too, but he fi gured if the album failed people have been bursting on the scene L I he could blame it on the fact it was looking like teenage underwear models instrumental. But it didn’t fail, leading to in the blues world and that’s a disturbing three more releases, including his latest, trend, because I’m rarely entertained Red Clay Soul. by virgins. I want somebody that’s gone The title is such a perfect through some shit, gotten locked up, description of what Ellis does you divorced, some real life experiences. wonder why he hasn’t labeled it as such And so I’m more apt to be entertained E S before. “We don’t name albums and by the Bonnie Raitts of the world, people then make ‘em, we make ‘em and then who have been knocked around by the name ‘em,” Ellis says. “We’re listening to industry.” some of the songs, and our co-producer, And once again, Stevie Ray’s keyboardist Kevin McKendree, (Delbert infl uence looms large. “Lord knows we McClinton, Brian Setzer) said, ‘Man, this could use another Stevie Ray Vaughan. Y by Grant Britt stuff has a seriously Southern vibe.’ So I When the planets converge like they did thought we don’t want to call it seriously with him, it’s a remarkable thing,” Ellis Southern, but we want it to have that kind says. “He held the door open for us in ‘83, of feel. So red clay, that’s the geographic and the rest of us just walked in behind description of it, and hopefully soul is the him. So we need another dude like that RED CLAY musical description.” or woman like that. We gotta have these McKendree has been on every young people doing it, but by the same Ellis studio album since ‘97’s Fire It Up. token, its gotta be an old sound and “There’s never been another musician have that old sound early. We’re always SOUL MAN I’ve met whose playing suits me better,” looking, so many blues musicians, but so Ellis says. The pianist stirs up a bit of ‘70s few bluesmen.” nostalgia on the opening cut, “All I Think JANUARY 2017 - Blues Music Magazine - 21