Preeminent blues guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Tinsley Ellis was just as flummoxed by the pandemic as anyone else. But in his case, he turned the pandemic downtime into a creative windfall of new tunes. The end result is a freewheeling blues-rock tour de force, illustrating his mastery of the genre. Ellis is an undisputed pro and on Devil May Care, he continues to balance his core influences with new inspirations.
In his basement studio in Atlanta, the legendary bluesman tested out around 200 new song ideas for his 20th album. Offering a few samples to Facebook and his website for instant feedback, he eventually culled the batch into a tightly wound, ten-song collection. Recorded at The Rock House in Franklin, Tennessee and released by Alligator Records, Devil May Care was crafted in collaboration with his old friend, keyboardist-producer Kevin McKendree in addition to Steve Mackey (bass), Lynn Williams (drums) and Jim Hoke and Andrew Carney on horns.
The affable Ellis recently chatted about the album by phone from his home in Georgia.
How did you handle the pandemic in general? Obviously, you stayed busy during the downtime.
Yeah, we were halfway through the tour for the last album [2020’s excellent Ice Cream In Hell] and they told us we had to come home. We were all the way to Northern California but we rescheduled that tour. And it has been rescheduled three times since then, I might add. Yep, unsuccessfully. We came home, and I just so down because we thought it might just last for a couple months or something. Basically, I didn’t want to lose my chops so I set up on my equipment and just started songwriting. I came up with quite a few songs and that eventually became part of this new album.
I’ve heard you had around 200 songs to pick from. That’s a hell of a lot of material.
Yeah! It was at least 200 songs. I had some things I’d written before the pandemic as well. But most of this stuff was written in a six-month period – from the end of 2020 through the beginning of ‘21. So we had a lot to choose from. There was a great amount of creativity during that time but gee, that’s an awful high price to pay for it, really. There’s an upside to stuff but at a certain point it’s like, ‘Okay, that’s just too much downside to the upside.’
It’s a really good follow up to Ice Cream In Hell. Thematically, stylistically and even the title. It’s the perfect bookend to it.
Well, it is. And it’s an ironic title too, because somebody who would go out on tour right now, they would have to have a devil may care attitude, I think. But you know, rescheduling the tour over, and over and over again has not served me well. So we’re going to try something different this time and actually do it.
The cover art has a very ‘70s vibe to it.
Well, I’ve got a ’70s vibe to me! I loved the ’70s. they were great. People were going out all the time. It seemed like sex or drugs wouldn’t kill you back then. We just seemed kinda bullet proof and everything was upbeat. Of course, in the post-Vietnam war era, the early ’70s were pretty scary. But there was that time, that sweet time in the mid ’70s when everything seemed to be right, you know? Jimmy Carter was the president and things were looking up.
But to fast-forward to today, please tell us about the creation process for the record.
Well, thanks to the pandemic, there was a lot more free time to do it. So I went down into my basement. I had a recording studio in Tucker, Georgia and I moved it all to my basement. I’d go down there with a cup of coffee, a strong cup of coffee, and listen to a little bit of music. It was like, ‘Ok yeah, I like that song, and I like that tempo and I’m going to write something kind of like that.’ I was knocking out three or four songs a week that way. I would send them up to Alligator Records and they would send back a critique. I didn’t send everything up there, but I probably sent 70 or 80 songs. I was also posting them to Facebook and people were weighing in. I did a weekly Facebook post every Wednesday called the “Wednesday Basement Tapes,” sort of as a homage to Dylan and The Band’s Basement Tapes. I posted stuff and the fans weighed in on them. I could kind of see what they liked and what they didn’t. And then of course, I play into it, too. I mean, I also considered if I liked it or not. Then I was able to whittle the songs down. We’ve never really been able to test the market like that. For motion pictures, they do that. Though there’s much more money involved in movies. But they’ll make a movie and have three different endings and let audiences watch those movies and weigh in on how they felt about the endings. So to be able to test the market like that was pretty fun. A lot of those songs ended up on the album. And a lot of the songs I chose ended up on the album. Then Alligator had three that they really wanted to be on there, too.
You mentioned that you wanted to keep it upbeat for the times because we need it. But did the times sort of creep into some of the concepts? For an artist attuned to what’s going on, the atmosphere can probably sway the thought process a bit.
Oh yeah, some of the songs that didn’t make it on the album were very dark. But you don’t want too many of those on an album regardless of what’s going on. But yeah, I mean, I’m sensing – and maybe it’s a false sense – but I’m sensing some optimism at the moment that I haven’t seen in a couple of years. (laughs) Man, I should be in politics, I’m making some promises here, big promises.
That’s ok, to be a good politician, you don’t have to actually follow through. All you need to say is that it’s going to happen. Sometime. Or in two weeks. Then repeat the promise over and over.
(Laughs) Any day now, I promise! Famous last words, right? But I feel something could be changing. Of course, it’s a beautiful day here in Atlanta right now. So maybe that has something to do with it.
Since it’s a beautiful day and you aren’t tired of talking about the new record yet, let’s go through it, track by track, from start to finish. Just share whatever comes to your mind when I mention the title.
Yeah. Ok, cool.
All right, let’s start with track one, “One Less Reason.”
Yeah, for “One Less Reason,” we really wanted to open the album with that song, it’s a rockin’ shuffle. I haven’t opened with a rock and roll shuffle since the Heartfixers’ Cool On It album in 1986. I wanted a positive message shuffle to open the whole album with. I’ve been told that it has kind of an Allman Brothers flavor to it and I’ll take that as high praise.
High praise, indeed. Ok, next up is “Right Down the Drain.”
Yeah now, that one is kind of a funkier song and it has a little bit more of an edge to it than the first track, I would say. I put the slide guitar part on it, too. I actually recorded that here in my basement and added it onto the song. I think it added a lot to it.
Very good. Well, now on to “Just Like Rain.”
The ballad came out beautifully, I think. Then we put horns on it. That’s more of a serious-theme song about a guy making an amends to a woman. It seemed like a good place to put that song. And track three is always kind of a place that works as a sort of a centerpiece of the record. Because you come out rockin’ for a song or two and then for track three you can get into more of a serious thing.
Yeah, to bring us down a little bit for the ride ahead. I like that. Well next is “Beat the Devil,” speaking of the whole Hell theme.
Well, that is a song actually that Alligator Records chose from the demos that I didn’t have on my first list. But I’m glad they did, because that is one that a couple of reviewers really liked. We put horns on it because we wanted to give it a kind of a soul music feel.
It definitely has a Stax vibe going on. I like that. Next is “Don’t Bury Our Love.”
Slow blues. That closes out side-one of the album for the vinyl release. I’m from an era where you always have a slow song to close out an album side. I’m really happy with the way that one came out. Slow blues is kind of my wheelhouse – but you can’t have a whole album of that, obviously. But I’m very, very pleased with that one.
You open side two with some good “Juju,” which is a traditional blues theme and an asset for sure.
Well, that one would be a little comic relief following the seriousness of “Don’t Bury Our Love.” It started off being… well, I wanted it to be more like a Dr. John kind of song, a real New Orleans-y thing. It ended up being something more like an outtake from the Allman Brothers’ Brothers and Sisters, with slide and a really nice acoustic piano part.
Oh, yeah. That brings us to “Step Up.”
It’s a message song. But a message about what, I’m not sure. But it’s an uplifting thing. It says to step up to higher ground and that could be any number of things really. Somebody recently asked me if that was about politics. I said, ‘No, it’s not about politics and it’s not a religion thing, either.’ It’s just one of those kind of positive-saying things, you know, to just step on up.
Right, step up to the plate and take a swing.
There you go! I didn’t even think of that. The sports thing, right? Or the carnival barkers who go, ‘Step right up.’
In the spirit of the carny barker, I always think of Tom Waits when there’s anything connected to the command to “Step Right Up.” Ok, let’s take a swing at “One Last Ride.”
In “One Last Ride,” somebody is saying, ‘You know, let’s do this one more time. I miss you, so let’s do it one more time.’ In a sense, they’re talking about a motorcycle ride. There’s a lot of motorcycle talk in that one. I have a lot of motorcycle-riding fans, actually. It’s like saying, ‘Ok, let’s just take a ride and see where it goes.’
Ah, very good. So now, let’s look at “28 Days.”
There was a movie named that, where Sandra Bullock was in drug rehab. So I’m kind of likening abstinence from a love affair into sort of like a rehab facility visit – or something like that. That’s another song Alligator Records chose that I didn’t have on my list. But you know, it’s an up-tempo thing and it’s got the wah-wah pedal on it and it’s through a Marshall amplifier. So I was kind of all-in on that one.
That brings us to the last one on the record, the devilish vibe of “Slow Train To Hell.”
It’s another slow blues, so it’s another good album-side closer. That one came out with an almost ZZ Top-style vibe to it. It rocks in that bluesy kind of way – if I might say so myself. I really like that feel for a song. I really love doing those long, slow blues songs. I think it’s a good way to end the album.
Devil May Care is available from most major music retailers and on vinyl and CD direct from the artist viawww.tinsleyellis.com.
