Ellen McIlwaine

Ellen McIlwaine's background is diverse. Born in Nashville, Tennessee and adopted by Southern Presbyterian Missionaries, she spent fifteen years in Japan as part of a small international community attending Canadian Academy in Kobe. She began playing rock & roll piano at age five, listening to New Orleans-style rythmn & blues (Ray Charles, Fats Domino, Professor Longhair), Latino groups like Trio Los Panchos, Japanese classical and folk music,American jazz on Japanese radio; country music and European classical music on US Armed Forces Radio. She also sang in the church choir.

Returning in 1963 to North America with her parents, Ellen attended collegefor two years in Tennessee and then art school in Atlanta while absorbing the music of Tina Turner, BB King, the Isley Brothers, James Brown and other rhythm & blues and Gospel groups. It was here she bought her first guitar and began appearing in Atlanta clubs.

In 1966, encouraged by folk singer Patrick Sky she went to Greenwich Village, bought from Guild Guitars the steel-stringed accoustic used by Mississippi John Hurt, among others, during repairs, and met Dave Van Ronk and Odetta, Muddy Waters, Richard Prior, Buddy Guy & Junior wells, Sunny Terry & Brownie McGhee, etc. From the Blue Flames who backed up John Hammond she met Jimi Hendrix and they became friends, playing music and struggling on the New York scene. After returning to Atlanta in 1967 she formed her own group, Fear Itself, moved to Woodstock, New York and released the album Fear Itself on Dot Records in 1969.



photo by Peter Sutherland

In 1970 the group dissolved and Ellen began playing solo, recording Honky Tonk Angel in 1972 and We the People in 1973 for Polydor Records. In 1974 Polydor released a compilation, The Guitar Album of guitar players on the label: John McLaughlin, Link Wray, T Bone Walker, Rory Gallagher, Roy Buchannan, Ellen, etc. In 1975 Ellen lived in Montreal for a year and recorded The Real Ellen McIlwaine for Kot'ai/United Artists with some members of the Ville Emard Blues Band on some cuts. Moving back to Atlanta, Ellen continued to tour solo sharing the bill with Laura Nyro, Howlin' Wolf, Sun House, Weather Report, Lily Tomlin, Taj Mahal, George Thorogood, Tom Waitts, Chicago, Bruce Springstein, Koko Taylor, etc. In 1978 Ellen McIlwaine was recorded in New York with John Lee & Gerry Brown and released on United Artists. In 1979 Ellen returned to the power trio format of her roots with a new solid body electric given to her by Guild Guitars.

In 1982, her then manager Judy Keyserling financed Everybody Needs It, recorded in Chicago, featuring Jack Bruce (Cream) on bass & background vocals, Paul Wertico (Pat Metheney Band) on drums, Howard Levy on one piano cut, and released on Blind Pig Records. It won the 1982 NAIRD Award for Best Rock Album. Ellen's multi-cultural influences, her unique style of slide guitar, playing bass lines against driving rhythms and singing lead guitar lines, along with her powerfully moving vocals and scatting acrobatics had by this time earned her legendary cult status. She toured Australia twice and in 1987 recorded Looking For Trouble in Toronto (for Stony Plain Records) where she took up residence, absorbing the reggae influences of Toots & the Maytals and various other Jamaican acts coming through Toronto, which is pleasingly apparent in her music.

In 1990 Ellen played a series of concerts with her hero Johnny Winter and continued to tour North America using regional rhythm sections (bass & drums)from Vancouver, Calgary (where she moved in '92), Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, and Albany, New York. In 1966 the original albums The Real Ellen McIlwaine & Everybody Needs It were re-released as a CD on Stony Plain. In 1997 her first European tour was highlighted by the recording of her live performance at the women in (e)motion festival in Bremmen, Germany. It was released as a CD entitled Ellen McIlwaine/women in (e)motion festival by Tradition & Moderne Musikproduktion,(distributed by Festival in Canada) which features Randall Coryell on drums, and Leo Valvassori on bass, and contains Howl at the Moon along with other new material.

Also in 1997 Ellen created a live musical score for the Tom Cone play True Mummy, drawing on Egyptian and Lebanese traditional dance music and the inspiration os Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn. It distilled itself into her popular new original Egyptian Blues which was soon to be released as a part of a new album for Tradition & Moderne. Whe has completed sound scores from two film documentaries, appears on the Celebration of Blues collector Series and makes guest appearances on various other artists' CD's. A one hour documentary on her life and musical background has been aired on the Bravo Channel entitled A slide Through Time: Ellen McIlwaine Live!

In 1998 Honky Tonk Angel & We the People were released on one CD for Polygram Chronicles (now Universal) as Up From the Skies: The Polydor Years: the majority of her catalogue is now in print. Irish DJ David Holmes released Ellen's rendition of the Stevie Wonder tune Higher Ground on his Essential Mix and in 1999 Fat Boy Slim sampled the guitar intro from the same song for his composition Song for Lindy, causing some controversy but reaching a generous settlement with Stony Plain and Ellen.


In November 2000, Tradition & Moderne recorded Ellen's latest album Spontaneous Combustion in Seattle Washington with Bill Rich on bass and Kester Smith on drums, members of one of Taj Mahal's rhythm sections, and Taj Mahal is featured on two cuts. In April of 2001 Ellen recorded with Mondo Grosso, a Japanese electronica group and in November she re-recorded Born Under a Bad Sign for Polydor-Universal-Japan. Ellen will tour Japan in February recording a new live album for Polydor-Universal-Japan with Bill Rich & Kester Smith to be released for Producer/DJ Kei Kobayashi as part of the Japanese dance club scene.

With a schedule of Summer Festivals in Canada, a concert tour in parts of the United States, a return to Europe this year, and a tour of New Zealand and Australia scheduled for December, Ellen will have to delay completion of her Autobiography just a little bit longer!