10/1/2006

Robert Fontenot

Maybe one day William Lee Ellis will become the household name he deserves to be, and reviewers will finally bypass mentioning his impressive pedigree: son of Bill Monroe sideman Tony Ellis, conservatory-trained guitarist, and disciple of Piedmont legend Rev. Gary Davis. For now, however, Ellis' past remains the key to appreciating his style. He combines a historian's sense of place with the raw passion of the blues, uses a classical musician's understanding of volume as an instrument unto itself, and employs a fingerpicking style that marries disparate elements of Americana into a seamless whole.

What does that mean for the layman? Simply that Ellis is one of today's finest roots singer-songwriters, one capable of painting broad soundscapes rather than just picking out variations on a "dead" ethic. You don't need to understand music theory or be familiar with the history of American music to appreciate the sound of Ellis' fingers bending a troubled minor into a woozy major before settling back into the pastoral retreat of a few well-chosen Carolinian chords, as he does on the album-opening "Snakes in My Garden."

We can thank his latest producer, Jim Dickinson, for making God's Tattoos the most hauntingly atmospheric and concise distillation of Ellis' sound yet, summed up perfectly in the title of one moody instrumental, "When Leadbelly Walked the River Like Christ." Indeed, the guitarist often sacrifices exposition for atmosphere, resulting in a relatively brief, low-key, tight-lipped affair. There's plenty of straight blues to ground Ellis' folkier interludes on cuts like the title track, which sounds like Nick Drake making a run for the border, and "Perfect Ones Who Break," which would fit nicely into Eric Clapton's adult-contemporary repertoire. And given the completely unconscious way he weaves the blues into modern pop music, Ellis recalls Ry Cooder in his prime - he doesn't give a damn if you're impressed by his authenticity or not. But you will be.