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Blues music will always be with us because it resounds so boldly the many nuances of the human condition. Atlanta audiences are fortunate to have a thriving blues scene that includes internationally acclaimed Tinsley Ellis.
Featured in Billboard and Rolling Stone with descriptions such as “sings like a man possessed” and “unleashes feral blues guitar” — and with album titles such as Devil May Care and Storm Warning — Ellis may be known best for his high-energy, take-no-prisoners, turbocharged music. And the caliber of people he’s shared the stage with, who include Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Albert Collins and Koko Taylor, attests to his mastery of the fiery electric blues.
It’s not that Ellis hasn’t written more languid songs. In fact, B.B. King was a friend and major influence, and Ellis’ songs such as “Kiss of Death” and “Time to Quit” are reminiscent of King’s softer side and his characteristic ability to say more between the strings than on them. But, up until now, there have only been hints of what Ellis can do when the adornment of technology is removed.
This side of Ellis will be on full display in his new acoustic album, Naked Truth. It’s an album he’s always wanted to make, “a snapshot in time of what I’m doing now,” he told ArtsATL. His first stop on an international tour to promote the album will begin in his hometown, at Eddie’s Attic on February 9.
Like many, Elllis discovered the blues through the backdoor by listening to the
British bands of the 1960s. “Little Red Rooster” by the Rolling Stones was the first song he recalls hearing, and it changed his life. “I heard that slide guitar on there, and I just loved it. That’s the first time I ever heard anything that I could identify as blues,” Ellis said. Once hooked, he discovered the “real blues people” and became a regular at shows of masters like Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters. He eventually developed into an acclaimed songwriter and performer himself, enjoying a worldwide fan base and the respect of well-known blues and blues-influenced players.
The new album is a tribute, of sorts, to the blues and musicians who influenced Ellis’ career. It’s an artistic reminder of what music is all about when the flash and flamboyance are mostly stripped away.
The music of Son House is about as naked as it gets. An early pioneer of the Delta blues, he is known for emotive storytelling with spartan guitar notes emphasizing each lyrical phrase. Ellis includes a cover of House’s “Death Letter Blues” on the album, a song he called “one of the greatest blues songs of all time.” Both in the cover and in an original on the album titled Devil in the Room, Ellis emulates the way House created tension by positioning vocal syncopation against repeated guitar riffs.
House and other early blues musicians often got their unique sounds with “open tuning” — that is, they tuned each string on the guitar to form one chord when played together. In contrast to standard tuning, where the musician has to arrange his or her fingers across different frets to create different chord changes, open tuning makes one chord readily available. Not only does this create new possibilities when employing techniques such as fingerpicking or using a slide, but different tunings can create a variety of sounds and moods. For example, on “Windowpane,” Ellis’ favorite original on the album, he uses Skip James’ D minor open tuning. “That song is sort of in his tradition,” Ellis said. “It just kind of makes it low and spooky and eerie sounding.”
Open and other alternate tunings often evoke deep emotions by creating droning notes, or notes that resonate, even as the chords change. These notes are what you might hear in the Celtic instruments that influenced much of American folk music. “I don’t know why humans like that,” Ellis said, referring to the distinctive sound, “but they do.”
The common denominator of American roots music, of which blues and folk music are a part, justifies the album’s inclusion of a cover by contemporary folk guitarist Leo Kottke and three originals in the same vein, including the ethereal “Easter Morning.”
“Grown-Ass Man,” with its catchy riff, dips one toe into rock ‘n’ roll land, and it seems fitting that it is the penultimate song on an album that is back to basics — before the technology arrived that changed the sound of music forever. “I know that Alligator Records is branding [the album] as folk blues,” said Ellis, “and I like that description very much.”
Ellis is happy to pass the electric blues torch on to young people such as Georgia’s own Eddie 9V, whose talent he described as “the best blues guitar-playing I have heard since Stevie Ray Vaughan.” The young artist produced the cover of Son House on Ellis’ album, with his brother, Lane Kelly, doing the mixing. “Tinsley is a huge mentor to me,” said 9V. “I think the world of him, and I wouldn’t be talking to you today if it wasn’t for him.”
But whether plugged in or not, Ellis believes that blues music, if done right, “pulls at your soul.” This new album may move in a different direction from his previous ones, but it does indeed pull at your soul. That aspect of his work — along with Ellis’ characteristic ability to master numerous guitar techniques and combine them into work that is wholly original — will be familiar to fans who have followed the twists and turns of his creative process.
“Sometimes life is loud and brash, and sometimes life is sweet sounding,” Ellis said, describing the music he writes and performs. “You’ve got to have both, really, if it’s going to hold a mirror up to life.” There is value in volume, to be sure, but the “naked truth” may be this: Sometimes we have to disconnect to reconnect with the sound of being human.
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Shannon Marie Tovey is a freelance music journalist and educator.
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