Talkin' Music With Tinsley Ellis
Interview by Mike Tobin (timessquare.com)
Atlanta Blues-Rocker Tinsley Ellis is coming to New York, and he’s got a few things to say. He’s shared the stage and been on the same bill with many titans of blues, including BB King, Jaco Pastorius, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker, Warren Haynes, Widespread Panic, Allman Brothers, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Willy Dixon, and many more. Signed to Alligator records, Ellis has recorded 13 albums, his latest being Speak No Evil. A dedicated musician only gets better, and Ellis is no exception. Speak No Evil exhibits him at his most mature and most tasteful. His vocal timbre complements his six-string tone, and his lyrical subject matter is hard to ignore. His vocal chords scream with conviction, and his guitar weeps with raw emotion.
He’s a chopsy guitarist who plays with conviction and style. He presents the past in his phrasing and the here-and-now in his tone. His tone suggests that he’s been gigging non-stop since the get-go, which has yield his instincts to be razor sharp, and his sense of time to be right in the pocket. Times Square got a chance to talk with Ellis about how he got into blues and what music means to him. Ellis spoke honestly and didn’t say too much. And just like his albums, he kicked off a light and positive note, and slowly got deeper into personal truths.
Times Square (TS): What made you want to be a musician?
Tinsley Ellis (TE): I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964, and I begged my parents for a guitar. I’ve been playing music ever since. I was about six or seven years old.
TS: So why did you go down the blues route, as oppose to rock and roll or jazz, or any other genre?
TE: Well, the Beatles got me into the British invasion music, but then the Rolling Stones, The Animals, and The Yardbirds all had the same thing in common. They were all doing the Muddy Waters/Howlin Wolf/BB King thing. Then I went to see BB King when he was playing at a hotel lounge in North Miami Beach (I grew up in South Florida). He was playing there for a week and he did a teen show, which meant they shut the bar down and sold soda pop and stuff like that. He stood in the lobby and greeted all the kids. I was about fourteen at the time and it just knocked me out. And it wasn’t the BB King that had U2 fame with “When Love Comes To Town” or anything like that. It was a BB King that was playing weeks at a time with more of a stripped down band; he didn’t have an orchestra, he had maybe a six or seven piece band. He even broke a guitar string and gave it to me. I kept it in remembrance of my blues baptism. Since then we’ve done a lot of concerts opening for him. He’s always very nice to me. I guess that’s what brings us to BB Kings in New York City.
TS: You’re playing at his namesake bar on January 30th. What are your thoughts on the New York blues scene?
TE: Well, we’ve done a lot of blues concerts in New York City, all the way back to 1983, when I played at the Lone Star café. It was a legendary place where Stevie Ray Vaughan made his debut, and it was a great hangout in the early eighties. Then we worked our way up and played all the big nightclubs like the Beacon Theatre with John Lee Hooker and Buddy Guy – that was a great show. Anyway, this (playing New York City) is an opportunity to further the blues tradition, and we have so many friends and fans there, so we look forward to seeing them at the concert.
TS: Who comes out to Tinsley Ellis show?
TE: Guitar players, primarily, and also just blues fans.
TS: Do you take the time to talk to the crowd after a show?
TE: We’re all very accessible and approachable. It’s a business model and a personal model that I got from BB King after he hung out with us kids after his concert and signed autographs. There may be rock stars that hang in the back room after the show, but that’s not us.
TS: Let’s shift gears and talk about songwriting. What comes first – music or lyrics?
TE: Music always comes first. A lot of times I’ll write after listening to something else that I really like, and want to write something similar. But the hard part is the lyrics. If I don’t put lyrics to a song that right after I write the music, the song probably won’t get finished. It all has to come together at once. Very rarely have I waited to for lyrics to come. When I do write lyrics, it’s all over the map. I don’t write about politics, because there’s enough of that out there. I sing a lot about relationships. Some of it’s dark, some of it’s light. Tom Dowd taught me to open my albums with positive songs, and so I do that.
TS: Tell me about your latest album, Speak No Evil? I’ve heard the old saying, but why make it the album title?
TE: A friend of mine is a music teacher in Atlanta, and I noticed this title in a book of jazz charts.
TS: Sure, the Wayne Shorter tune.
TE: Exactly. It just sounded like it could be the name of a great blues song. So I wrote it for Guitar Shorty, who was going to record it for his album. When he didn’t record it, my label suggested that I should. Then it became the title of the album.
TS: Alright Tinsley, one last broad question. What does music mean to you?
TE: (pause) Music is and always needs to be a conversation.
(January 12, 2012)
