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Eleanor Ellis
This fine blues player has been learning at first hand
while helping the old musicians, discovers Dave Peabody.
E
leanor Ellis is one of the good that I really want to be able to sing it in come in and then they learn things.
ones, a self-appointed guardian of the right key. Then, partially, my repertoire Some very good musicians have gotten
an endangered American music. depends on whether or not I want to get together, who probably wouldn’t have
She’s been the companion of elder close to a certain guitar part… but the known each other if it hadn’t have been
musicians like Washington DC gospel singing’s interesting too. Harmonica player for that.”
street singer Flora Molton or Mississippi Phil Wiggins, also used to play with Flora,
bluesman Eugene Powell, helping them told me ‘You’ve really been influenced by
get to gigs, get paid, get home, while Flora’. She really sang out, she didn’t hold
absorbing and learning the music back. It was a certain style of singing and I
“A
t the time we made the
Blues Houseparty video
(1989) I was working at a
video production house,
playing guitar accompaniment.
think, without knowing it, you can get
which is one of the better jobs I had, and
Eminently versed in the tradition,
influenced by things like that.”
Joe Wilson of the National Council Of
Eleanor has emerged as a fine blues “I’m doing it ‘cos I really like the
Traditional Arts was in the same building
singer and guitarist as evidenced by her music and I really like to play it and I like
and we ran across each other in the
latest CD Comin’ A Time (see fR302/303). to sing it and I like the people involved, so
elevator and started talking. At first he
She’s originally from Amite, Louisiana
in a sense it is keeping a tradition alive just wanted to do a video of John Cephas
some 80 miles north of New Orleans: ”It’s
but not as an academic exercise. It’s and Phil Wiggins. Then we were thinking
along Highway 51 and the Illinois Central
something that I and other people are John Jackson and his wife Cora Lee put on
railroad runs right parallel to Highway 51
doing and I’ll link up with them and it some pretty good parties and it just
so we could always hear the trains.”
passes on the tradition. I do like for expanded. I was basically kind of in charge
Eleanor gravitated to the musical magnet
people to know where things come from of it because I was the one that things fell
of New Orleans and lived there for some
and I like for them to know about on, but there was plenty of help and I
time playing a mixed bag of blues and
musicians that maybe they’ve never heard consulted a lot with Cora Lee, ‘cos she had
country on Bourbon Street, and also play-
of… like Eugene. I mean, he wasn’t that to cook and it was her house. The way we
ing bass with Bill Malone’s Bluegrass
well known to the general public or even did it was, the first part of the party was
Band. In 1976 the Bluegrass Band trav-
the blues public. I got to know him pretty
people sitting around a picnic table
elled to Washington DC for a gig. The
well and it was a great experience. He was
talking about the old days and then the
Washington scene attracted Eleanor and
as good a storyteller as he was a player.”
party happened. We interspersed the talk
she decided to stay. “I heard Jo Ann Kelly when she
with the music and it was a kind of nice
“That was the year of the
played in Memphis and that was mind-
structure. I edited it and produced it and
bicentennial so the National Folk Festival
blowing. I mean, she was just amazing,
it’s now licensed for DVD.”
was there and there were all kinds of
and then I actually got to meet her when Eleanor Ellis plays Brooks Blues Bar @
good people there. There was a real
Flora and I came to England in ’87. But I The Telegraph, Putney Heath, London on
music scene in DC. It was easy to get gigs,
just remember her playing guitar and 9th October: www.brooksbluesbar.co.uk
easy to meet other musicians and
singing on that
eventually I began to meet blues
festival in Memphis. I
musicians. I think the first one that I met
believe it could’ve
was John Jackson. Sometimes I’d go up
been in ‘69… they
to John’s house and we’d play music. And
had a couple of
then I met Archie Edwards, met him
festivals.”
while I was working at a hippy, alternate
restaurant where I worked and also sang.
Eleanor has been
When Archie was singing there I went up
a very active
participant in the
and I offered to pass the hat for him and
local Washington
we got in a conversation, that’s how I
blues scene, helping
met Archie. I met Flora when I gave her a
set up the Archie
ride to a festival. Her guitar partner Ed
Edwards Blues
Morris had died and she asked me if I
Heritage Foundation
wanted to try playing guitar with her
and producing the
and I said ‘I’ll give it a try’. I had seen her
John Jackson Blues
playing here and there, but I’d never
Houseparty video.
gone really down to that part of DC
“We formed the
where she was playing in front of this
Archie Edwards Blues
department store. So, as I began to meet
Heritage Foundation.
people, as I began to get more into what
It’s been amazing
I really wanted to play, that’s when I
how many people
developed more of a blues repertoire.”
have been attracted
“I liked the classic blues singers from to that and it’s really
the ‘20s but it wasn’t my primary interest. I created a huge
certainly liked to listen to them but I liked scene. I’m not saying
it with the guitar. To me the guitar’s a everybody is equal
second voice. A lot of country blues were proficiency or doing
done by men and so the guitar parts were authentic country
done for a man’s voice. Gradually you blues, but there are a
accommodate to that. My first concern is lot of people who Photo: Dave Peabody
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