Who is Tinsley Ellis?
“Ellis delivers a powerful punch of deep roots blues and wicked guitar...a foot-stomping, raucous good time...a joyous and triumphant celebration of acoustic music. You’ll feel it down to the bone.” –Living Blues
“Glorious, raw and propulsive acoustic blues...killer vocals and biting, dazzling guitar work.” –AllMusic
“Stripped down and raw...gruff unembellished vocals...glistening melodies fingerpicked with delicacy...so genuine it seems like a long lost recording.” –Blues Music Magazine
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Atlanta-based musician Tinsley Ellis—known for decades as one of the greatest electric blues-rock guitarists of his generation—is now also recognized as one of the very best contemporary acoustic blues guitarists, songwriters and performers in the world.
With 2024’s critically acclaimed, Blues Music Award-nominated Naked Truth, Ellis unplugged with his first-ever acoustic album. On it he mixed his own striking original songs—inspired by Son House, Skip James, Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters—with a few reinvented covers. According to No Depression, “Even though it’s just Ellis and his acoustic guitars, there’s plenty of hell-raisin’ blues going on. With the ghost of Elmore James looking over his shoulder and Wolf leaning in...Ellis proves he’s an icon.”
Now, with his new album, Labor Of Love, Ellis delivers a raw, edgy, self-produced set of 13 original compositions, all performed with pure, emotional honesty. The songs spin modern tales of floods, conflagrations, voodoo spirits, personal travails and heaven-sent prayers. From the feral opener “Hoodoo Woman” to the John Lee Hooker-groove of “Long Time” to the evocative, Skip James-inspired “To A Hammer” to the Son House-style stomp of “Sunnyland,” Ellis inhabits his songs in a way that is simply astonishing.
Each performance carries the weight, experience and hard-earned wisdom Ellis learned over four decades on the road, making Labor Of Love as profoundly deep and moving as any music he has made in his career. It covers the gamut of emotions, finding good times in the hard times, mixing gentle beauty with foot- pounding ferocity.
During a break from the recording of the new album, Ellis spent time in Bentonia, Mississippi, birthplace of Skip James and home to blues legend Jimmy “Duck” Holmes. Ellis soaked up the spirit of this tiny Delta town, hanging out with Holmes and getting a deep insight into genuine Bentonia blues. Later, Ellis performed with Holmes at his famous Blue Front Café, soaking up every moment. “Once I got home,” notes Ellis, “I went right back to the studio and incorporated everything that I just experienced into my music.”
For the album, Ellis used six different open tunings on his beloved 1969 Martin D- 35, his 12-string Martin D-12-20, and his 1937 National Steel O Series guitars. He also, for the first time in his career, played mandolin on three of the album’s songs. The instrumentation and the tunings, he notes, create endless possibilities, and he finds himself constantly invigorated by the music.
Since the 2024 release of Naked Truth, Ellis has been travelling on his own, performing solo all over the country in his jokingly named “Two Guitars And A Car” tour. For Ellis, playing solo, acoustic blues has helped him tap into the raw essence of the music. “I love doing these shows,” Ellis says, with plans to continue touring solo for the foreseeable future. “No matter what I play, I like to have an edge. For me, just playing this music is a labor of love. I sat at the feet of Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf. I got into this music because of them. I always told myself if I could just make a living playing the blues, I’d be, at least in my own mind, successful.”
Premier Guitar believes he’s more than reached that goal, declaring, “Ellis is a legend of American blues music...he’s an American music treasure. He delivers a sermon on the power and glory of the blues, and is one of modern blues’ greatest performers.”
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