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Nobody, not me or Tinsley, nor BluesWax Chip Eagle will notice without me telling you that this is the same headline as a 2005 story I wrote about Tinsley s then-new CD Highwayman. The CD title is changed to Tinsley s new CD, which I compliment and recommend now.
In February and March 2013, I have been on one of the most enjoyable tours of my life. Blues At The Crossroads 2 is a tribute to Muddy and Howlin Wolf that played twenty shows in theaters and performing arts centers around the U.S. The basic band is The Fabulous Thunderbirds, featuring the amazing Kim Wilson. I believe Kim is at the peak of his powers, singing and confirming his reputation as one of the all-time great blues harp players ever. He hosts the revue with grace and pace.
Today s version of the Fabulous Thunderbirds is spectacular, and I know I m only seeing them performing these old Chicago Blues songs, not the T-Birds old and new material. Mike Keller and Johnny Moeller are on guitars, Jay Moeller is a dramatic drummer, and Randy Bermudes lays down a deep foundation with his driving bass.
The special guests for this tour include Mr. Superharp himself, James Cotton, and Chicago guitarist Jody Williams, known for his own hit instrumentals and his recordings with Howlin Wolf, Bo Diddley, and Billy Boy Arnold. I believe I m on the tour for my Muddy Waters credentials; I played in his band for seven years and carry on his slide guitar style, which I learned from him directly. I ve told my own blues stories in my music since my time with Muddy, but that s not what I m here to do. Originally we were going to have J.J. Grey as a guest. His wider-than-blues audience would attract more people to our show and though I don t know him, I m told he would interpret the Howlin Wolf songs strongly.
Then, just two weeks before the tour started, I heard that J.J. Grey had to cancel due to a throat problem. And I got a call from my old friend Tinsley Ellis, who surprised me by telling me he was going to replace J.J. Grey. We talked on the phone for an hour, catching up, and looking forward to hanging out and playing together more than we have in the whole previous rest of our lives.
It has indeed turned out that way. My friendship with Tinsley, a great musician, has grown from the opportunity. Before Tinsley and I tell you about his new CD, I m going to go back to that BluesWax article I wrote about him in 2005 and quote some of it, the story of how we got together a long time ago:
In 1978 I had some time off from the Muddy Waters Band and I was partying, sitting in with The Nighthawks and the Charlottesville Blues All-Stars in Charlottesville, Virginia. There was an amazing annual event there called Easters Weekend, long banned now. All the local fraternities would bring in bands to play. Most were blues-based young regional bands from the mid-Atlantic states, and the players cruised from house to house to visit and jam. We were all just having a good time, playing the blues and rock we loved for wild college kids. I remember meeting and running around to a few frat houses with the guitar player from Atlanta s Alley Cats, Tinsley Ellis. Nobody was thinking about career moves, music markets, selling albums, trends, or professional images or future blues journalism.
So many years later, Tinsley and I have done thousands of gigs, mostly separately, sometimes spending a few minutes catching up when we find ourselves on the same bill. We compare notes on record companies and the road and blues guitar, and enjoy each others progress.
Continued in next Review..... --Bob Margolin - Bluesrevue.com
Tinsley still gigs more often than most blues bands do. He s built up a circuit of blues and roots music clubs and festivals, song by song, mile by mile, over that quarter-century. It still sustains him in spite of musical trends and the challenging evolution of the blues scene away from the clubs that were always its foundation. Back to the present and all of that is still true about Tinsley. He has been very well received on this unusually prestigious blues tour, performing two electric Howlin Wolf songs and then playing Little Red Rooster on a metal guitar accompanied just by Kim Wilson s sublime harp. Without direct experience with Muddy or Wolf, Tinsley s performances show how old-school Chicago blues is one of the many foundations of his music.
As we were hanging out, riding on an actual tour bus in February (most blues bands don t get to do this!), Tinsley told me he had recorded an instrumental CD that will be released on March 19. I am busier than an ant at a picnic and have an infinite to do list of business to execute and music to listen to, but there were Tinsley and his CD right in front of me and I was enjoying our friendship. As I lay down in one of the bus bunks, I listened to Tinsley s CD on the my iPhone with earpods.
He ruined my nap! His instrumental songs celebrate guitar tones on well-written original songs where Tinsley s guitar sings wordlessly with deep feeling. He doesn t need words to tell a story, just his guitar. He plays slow, simple melodies that make me beg for the next note and smile when it arrives. He uses the skills he honed on those thousands of bandstands to throw in some fireworks to dazzle, and then takes it back to a beautiful melody. Actually, a lot of these songs are about melodies.
It has been my honor to know and work with many great guitar players and to appreciate their music. I am appreciating my friend Tinsley Ellis now. You see how impressed I am with his new CD, Get It. Here s Tinsley to tell you more about it:
Get It! is the all-instrumental album that I ve always wanted to make. From my earliest recollection I ve always loved instrumentals. As a kid I could not get enough of bands like the Ventures and Booker T and the MG s. Then there were those great Jeff Beck albums in the 70s where his guitar sang the songs so well. As a blues player, the Freddy King instrumentals are the bedrock of just about everything I try to do when I perform or record. These are the styles of music that the songs on Get It! were born from. Plus, there s even one song, Berry Tossin , that is a tribute to Chuck Berry who had some cool instrumentals as well.
Sadly it seems that lately the genre of guitar instrumentals has all but gone away. So I cranked up the reverb, fired up the Echoplex, started the Leslie cabinet spinning, and took down the vocal mike in my home studio. I called my long-time partner in album makin crime Kevin McKendree to play the keys and he wisely recommended Lynn Williams for the drum chair. The bass parts that I didn t play myself were played by Ted Pecchio. Kevin McKendree mixed the album and I m very pleased with the results. From Bob, back to you: As with Tinsley s live CD from 2005, Highwayman, Get It! makes some great driving music for the highway. Enjoy his singing guitar and the grooves and the atmosphere. Trying to listen to it and take a nap was my mistake. I love the sounds, and as another guitar player, I m very inspired. I hang on every note. --Bob Margolin - Bluesrevue.com
Get It! is a throwback collection of instrumental tracks where Tinsley Ellis plays tribute to some of the great guitar players who came before him. Putting the microphone away allows Tinsley s guitar to take center stage and carry these tunes. His prodigious talent allows him to span the gamut from blues shuffles ala Stevie Ray and Albert Collins to Dick Dale surf guitar and Santana s smooth Latin style.
It s really easy to figure out who is getting paid tribute to in almost every song. So while the guitar playing on this album is stellar, since the songs are almost all tributes to a certain artist they at times end up being sort of predictable. For instance, Tinsley attacks his strat on the first track Front Street Freeze, which is an obvious tribute to the Iceman himself Albert Collins. Freddy s Midnight Dream is a Freddie King cover and Berry Tossin is another shuffle replete with Chuck Berry licks. The title track Get It! has a clear SRV vibe. Add to that a Dick Dale surf style cover of Bo Diddley s Detour and you ve hit the blues tributes.
The rockers get their due also. Fuzzbuster is stuffed with a distorted wah-wah pedal and is noticeably Jeff Beck influenced. Meanwhile you can plainly hear Santana on the Latin sounding Catalunya and Tinsley fires up the Les Paul and an echoplex for Anthem For a Fallen Hero, which has Roy Buchanan written all over it.
While Get It! is a showcase of Tinsley s talents including the five tracks where he also plays the bass, let us not forget the rest of the band, including the stupendous Kevin McKendree on keys, Lynn Williams on percussion, and Ted Pecchio playing bass on the remaining tracks. Kevin s keyboard playing is phenomenal on this album, especially when he gets the Leslie cabinet spinning. While not the most original album, since it s filled with obvious tributes, the album is an interesting collection of instrumental tracks that do justice to the intended recipients. --Kevin O'Rourke
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