ALBUM REVIEW: Tinsley Ellis Strips Down Songs for ‘Naked Truth’

Tinsley Ellis has finally come unplugged. It took 21 albums to do it, but on Naked Truth the Atlanta-based bluesman has forsaken his Stevie Ray Vaughan amp settings for an acoustic gathering of originals and a sampling of a couple of old masters, including Son House’s chilling “Death Letter Blues” and Muddy Waters’ “Don’t Go No Further.”

Tinsley Ellis (photo by Kirk West)

Vaughan sat in with Ellis in Atlanta in 1981 when Ellis had just founded the Heartfixers band. “We had never seen anything like that,” Ellis told me in an interview for Blues Music Magazine a few years back. Vaughan got up on stage and played Ellis’ Strat through his Super Reverb amp, which Ellis still plays and tours with as part of his gear. “I never changed the settings after he sat in,” Ellis told me. “I could tell you the settings, but then I’d have to kill you.”

Ellis has always been a fan of fiery, bombastic blues rock, going back and forth from his Alligator Records debut in 1988 to Capricorn to Telarc to his own label, Heartfixer, and coming back to Alligator in 2018. Ellis said at one time there were some artistic differences between him and Alligator. “There’s a James Taylor in me just dying to get out. I’d say probably with Alligator, they wanted me to be Hound Dog Taylor, not James Taylor.”

But Ellis’ idea of mellow ain’t exactly what Taylor fans would look for. On Naked Truth, even though it’s just Ellis and his two acoustic guitars — a 1937 National steel and a 1969 Martin D-35 acoustic — there’s plenty of hell-raisin’ blues going on.

His cover of House’s “Death Letter Blues” is a death march stomping relentlessly toward the graveyard with some stops along the way to slam sorrow upside the head with some steely, ringing licks from the National steel. It’s got the same chill as House’s take on Willie Dixon’s classic dirge, just moves along at a bit more lively pace, backed with a resounding whomp that lets you know death is still the Bigfoot in pursuit.

Revising Muddy’s “Don’t Go No Further” finds Ellis in better spirits, telling his would-be paramour to throw away her shopping list and just come on home with him to get what she needs. Ellis damn near out-Muddys Muddy as he pounds through this one, filling in all the spaces Muddy used his band for on the original with rippling fills on his Martin.

Twelve-string master fingerpicker Leo Kottke’s “The Sailor’s Grave” is the third cover on Naked Truth, with Ellis using his National steel to swoop, dive, and duck around, emulating Kottke’s multi-stringed prowess with half the strings.

And it’s back to the National steel again for an Ellis original, “Horseshoes and Hand Grenades,” with the ghost of Elmore James looking over his shoulder and Wolf leaning in as well contributing some inspiration from his vocals on “Sittin’ on Top of the World.”

“Tallahassee Blues” stirs up House’s spirit once again on another Ellis original voiced with the help of his National steel.

The Hill Country feel of “Devil in the Room” is enhanced with some rigorous handclaps that give it a churchy feel, an open-air exorcism to stomp and sweep the evil one from the vicinity.

Even without his electric wardrobe, Ellis proves he’s still a sartorial icon, his steel-stringed suit a head-turning marvel of splendifference.

Tinsley Ellis’ Naked Truth is out Feb. 9 on Alligator Records.