Alligator Records
2009
Speak No Evil
About This Album
Tinsley Ellis has worked hard since the early 1980s to establish himself on the contemporary blues scene. As a result, he has become one of the most consistent, and therefore quintessential, electric blues men. Ellis is a an excellent guitar player and a terrific showman. He's a good songwriter in that he stretches the blues form as far as it will go, and occasionally he crosses into solid hard rock territory. On Speak No Evil, it seems as though Ellis has been listening to some of Robin Trower's early to mid-period records. That's not a bad thing: Trower is one of the great modern bluesmen who has been remarkably consistent over the decades, and he is one of the more astonishingly soulful guitar heroes alive. What seems to be at work on Speak No Evil is Ellis trying to push the blues form in a decidedly more rockist direction without losing its emotional feel. And he's done his job. Check out the opening track, "Sunlight of Love" With its hard-driven wah-wah pedals and funky backbeat; one can easily imagine this track on Trower's Twice Removed from Yesterday -- Ellis even apes vocalist James Dewar's vocal phrasing. It's a killer track and a sheer surprise, -- especially with a B-3 providing such a powerful atmospheric backdrop in the power trio format.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,5,6,7,9 and 12)

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