By L. Kent Wolgamott
Tinsley Ellis is out driving around the country on what Alligator Records has dubbed his “Two Guitars and a Car” tour. That car brings him to Healdsburg’s Raven Theater on Friday, Nov. 21.
The tour’s name comes from the fact that Ellis, a powerhouse electric blues/rock guitarist from Atlanta, is touring behind Naked Truth, his first acoustic album. What’s more he’s carrying only the 1969 Martin D-35 acoustic guitar his father gave him when he graduated from high school, and a shiny 1937 National steel guitar.
“And I’ve got a trunkload of vinyl and CDs that I sell,” Ellis said in an interview. “They’re forgetting about that. But I definitely wanted to make sure I had a big enough trunk to carry a lot of vinyl and CDs around.”
Released in February 2024, Naked Truth is the 21st album of Ellis’ 40-plus-year career, and the first he’s done entirely on acoustic guitars.
“I’ve got a bucket list of albums I want to make,” Ellis said. “One of them was certainly a live album, and I did that in 2005. Another one on my bucket list was to do an all-instrumental album. I did that in 2013. So this is my acoustic album and my acoustic tour.”
Playing acoustically, Ellis has learned, is different from hitting the stage with a band. “It’s a little scary when I first go up there to play because I’m so used to going up there and being able to rely on the drum beat and the thumping bass. Now it’s just me,” Ellis said. “It’s the first time I’ve really been challenged musically in a long time, and I think that’s a good thing.”
Over the course of a show, Ellis said, he’ll do much if not all of Naked Truth, mixing in songs like the Skip James-inspired “Windowpane” and the “Tallahassee Blues” and covers of Son House’s “Death Letter Blues” and Waters’ “Don’t Go No Further” with selections from throughout his career that require his blues-rock acoustic.
“It’s pretty high energy really; it’s not a mellow thing,” Ellis said of the acoustic show. “It’s just more personal. Another aspect of it that I really like, that people also like, is I talk about how I wrote certain songs, give a little backstory to the songs and also talk about experiences from the road. I talk about maybe some old blues people that I crossed paths with, interspersed with some stories.”
For instance, he recalls the first time he saw B.B. King. “That’s the first time I saw real blues, and I got to meet him,” he said. “It was a teen show. And he greeted all the kids in the lobby, I think it was like 1972, a long time ago, over 50 years ago. He was the nicest man. After that, I really got hooked on the blues and I got to literally sit at the feet of people like B.B., Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf.”
Over the years, Ellis has shared the stage with the likes of Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, Albert Collins and Koko Taylor. But he’s always carved his own path, veering away from the straight Chicago blues for a fervent brand of electric-guitar-driven blues-rock.
“I’m really fortunate to be with Alligator Records,” Ellis said. “They’re known for house-rockin’ blues, like Hound Dog Taylor and Son Seals. That just happens to be the music I love the most. But on the other side of the coin is rock ’n’ roll; some rock ’n’ roll blues is my love, but rock ’n’ roll is definitely my heritage. So I like to mix it up.”
Ellis will be stirring up that musical mix, which will include some Leo Kottke-style folk, when he gets out the guitars and climbs onto a stool on the Raven stage to deliver another installment of what has become a very crowd-pleasing show.
“I’ve never seen so many smiles on an audience in my life than when I do this,” Ellis said. “I kind of feel that an entertainer’s in the smile business. So a lot of smiles makes me happy, and lets me know I’m on the right track.”
Tinsley Ellis plays the Raven Performing Arts Theater on Friday, Nov. 21. 115 North St., raventheater.org.
