Dave Ellis (musician)
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Dave Ellis is an influential English folk guitarist, singer and composer whose music is extremely difficult to categorise, due to its unique diversity and combination of styles. His early instrumental influences include guitarist Bert Jansch.
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Early career
Ellis' first vinyl album called "Album" (1973) won strong critical praise and is regarded as a classic, but the opportunity presented by acclaimed national TV and radio appearances (on such now-legendary TV shows as The Old Grey Whistle Test) was inexplicably never seized by his record company, at a time when the solo acoustic guitarist/singer-songwriter needed all the promotion they could get, no matter how good the material or performances.
As result of the lack of promotional follow-up at that time, Ellis's guitar prowess has remained one of the best kept secrets of the guitar fraternity, influencing such successful artists as Mark Knopfler.
Early contemporaries
Other guitarists with whom he has been favourably compared include John Renbourn, John Fahey, Davey Graham, Nic Jones and at the time with American contemporary singer songwriter James Taylor.
Another important figure on the folk guitar scene at the time, Gordon Giltrap, also played on that album, a musician who seemed to share Dave's interest in pushing the steel strung acoustic guitar beyond the limits of folk conventions in terms of technique, sound and repertoire.
Bands
Ellis has had a succession of different musical excursions since his solo period (and at least one before it, called Fido):
The bands were essentially pop/rock bands, rather than acoustic or folk. Ellis was as adept with an electric guitar as he was with an acoustic, shocking any itinerant guitarist who happened to be drinking in one of the London pubs where Ellis gigged that such an extraordinary player would be in a completely unknown band.
Much of the material was original, although Astra also played a version of the Swinging Blue Jeans' "You're No Good" that blended well with the band's repertoire.
Recent Career
Ellis has 'returned to his roots' and gone back to performing acoustic material in collaboration with Boo Howard who was a singer and bassist with his later band lineups and also composes songs.
Current material includes bluegrass (Ellis has added banjo playing to his repertoire) as well as ragtime, blues and country music, along with his own typically unclassifiable 'quirky' compositions.
As a duo, Ellis and Howard have become as highly regarded for their extraordinarily evocative vocal harmonies (reminiscent of leading UK singing duo Clive Gregson and Christine Collister) as for Ellis's playing.
Style
Ellis is an honorary member of those unofficial and mythical societies of 'Guitar Innovators' and 'Guitar perfectionists', always trying to tease out some hidden capability, tone, or expression concealed within the instrument and constantly in search of ways to achieve ever greater clarity, depth and sensitivity from wire and wood.
The likes of Martin Simpson, Adrian Legg and Jerry Douglas are also members of these ethereal clubs, with much in common with Ellis's approach.
Ellis's compositional style is extremely diverse and eclectic, often influenced by his creative exploration of new possibilities with particular instruments, or themes. Examples can be found in treatments of the banjo as a guitar-like 'lead melody' instrument, or a 12 string guitar tuned to 5ths.
Production styles occasionally include echoes of Gershwin, Cole Porter and the Beatles, but often sound completely unique and unmistakeably Dave Ellis.
Ellis has recently taken to bringing a drum machine to folk venues, programing sophisticated full-length percussion accompaniments to acoustic pieces, with sufficient sensitivity to have so far avoided (much to his surprise) a single complaint from even die-hard folkies.
External links
- Official site (http://www.daveandboo.com/)
- Album (1973) (http://freespace.virgin.net/ellis.dave1/recordings/davealbum.html)