Eleanor Ellis CD-376
I Do Just What I Do
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I Do Just What I Do is a musical expression with more than a little panache. Eleanor Ellis has recorded some very fine, musically superb albums over the years. This feels different. This record is an expression of love for those who mentored her and took her on stage with them. This is her rhapsody, her magnum opus. When listening to it, you metaphysically bond with all the musicians who loved and embraced her. This is her love note back to them, an album in a class by itself. If Eleanor Ellis had never recorded anything before and after this album, it would not matter. I Do Just What I Do is her ultimate masterpiece, the work of a mature artist who is solidly confident and on top of her game.
Not long after arriving in the D.C. area in 1976, Eleanor Ellis was befriended and mentored by the great local players John Jackson, John Cephas, Phil Wiggins and Archie Edwards. Back then, the African American acoustic blues of Washington, D.C., was based in and around Archie’s original famous barbershop. Eleanor and gospel street-musician Flora Molton were the first women to be fully embraced by this vibrant local acoustic blues scene. It is a testament to the openness and inclusiveness of the D.C. musical elders to embrace a young white Southern woman with a thick Louisiana dialect as one of their own. There was and is something special in the regional D.C. blues and it comes back to the personalities of the old masters. By now, the brilliant chanteuse has been an important member of the D.C. roots & blues community for nearly 50 years.
The elders left us, one by one, and Eleanor carried on. The harmonica ace Phil Wiggins was her frequent musical partner after John Cephas died. He frequently told this writer how much he adored Eleanor and how he totally loved playing with her. As we just lost the great Phil Wiggins, hearing his fascinating duets on this album with Eleanor warm the heart. Now that Phil has also passed, Eleanor is the elder carrying on the tradition, along with friends like Neil Harpe, who is also featured on this album.
As you will hear, Eleanor Ellis is an unparalleled interpreter of traditional songs who sourced her voices and rhythms to her acoustic blues predecessors. The word “legendary” is thrown around excessively nowadays, but here is a folk-roots artist who truly deserves that adjective. Eleanor Ellis is indeed a legendary acoustic blues picker, one of the finest living performers in the genre. There are very few authentic voices with this fluid command of alternating bass fingerpicking styles. She plays with a natural elegance, a swift fluency, always reflecting a sense of beauty in the music, expressive with feeling. Eleanor sings with a rich, strong voice coupled with exquisite, refined guitar picking, and a wide-ranging song repertoire of the regional blues traditions.
She brings you to a temporal interim where only music can take you. A proud, joyous, beautiful place.
Frank Matheis
Music, Arts & Culture Writer
Contributing writer to Living Blues magazine and formerly to Blues Access.
CD-138 COMIN' A TIME
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Eleanor Ellis –
vocal and guitar on all songs
1. Take Me Back Baby – Mississippi John Hurt/Archie Edwards/arr.
Ellis
2. Diving Duck – Sleepy John Estes
Michael Baytop, harmonica, Richard “Mr. Bones”
Thomas, bones
3. Cypress Grove – Skip James
4. 61 Highway – Traditional, arranged Ellis
Judy Luis-Watson, piano, Michael Baytop, harmonica, Thomas
Cox, bass
5. Wonder Where My Easy Rider’s Gone – Mance Lipscomb
6. Big Road Blues – Tommy Johnson
Jay Summerour, harmonica
7. In My Girlish Days – Memphis Minnie
Judy Luis-Watson, piano, Jay Summerour, harmonica
8. The Panic is On – Hezekiah Jenkins
Neil Harpe, guitar and vocal
9. Sun’s Gonna Shine One Day (composed by Flora Molton)
Phil Wiggins, harmonica
10. Texas Easy Street Blues – Henry Thomas
11. Leavin’ Trunk – Sleepy John Estes
Michael Baytop, harmonica and bones
12. Me and My Chauffeur – Memphis Minnie
Neil Harpe, guitar
13. Kansas City – Jim Jackson
14. Goin’ Away Blues – Lottie Kimbrough
Joel Bailes, piano, Pearl Bailes, harmonica, Thomas Cox,
bass
15. Special Rider – Skip James
16. Richmond Blues – Julius Daniels, Blind Boy Fuller, Bull
City Red
Jay Summerour, harmonica
17. Mississippi Blues – Willie Brown
Neil Harpe, guitar
18. What’s the Matter With the Mill – Memphis Minnie &
Kansas Joe
Neil Harpe, guitar and vocal
ELEANOR ELLIS, a native of Louisiana, has performed at clubs, festivals and concerts in the United States, Canada and Europe. She has also traveled and played with the late gospel street singer Flora Molton and bluesman Archie Edwards, and sometimes accompanied Delta Blues great Eugene Powell. She is a founding member of the DC Blues Society and the Archie Edwards Blues Heritage Foundation, has written about the blues for several publications, and is producer and editor of the video documentary Blues Houseparty, which features well-known Piedmont blues musicians such as John Jackson, John Cephas, and Archie Edwards. She also worked at the Archive of New Orleans Jazz at Tulane University in New Orleans, and at the New Orleans Jazz Museum.
Her recordings include Comin' a Time on the Patuxent label, Backyard Blues, a CD of solo blues guitar and vocals; Preaching in That Wilderness on the Riverlark label with Bill Ellis and Andy Cohen; appearances on several anthologies, including the 25th Anniversary Kent State Folk Festival collection, Sisterfire: Music by Women, and Archie's Barbershop Blues, released by the Archie Edwards Blues Heritage Foundation; and two recordings with Flora Molton, I Want to Be Ready to Hear God When He Calls, on Mrs. Molton's own Lively Stone label, and Flora Molton, recorded for Radio France.