8/1/2003

Joe Cushley

...nothing could be further from Lynch's dark world-view than William Lee Ellis's fresh, delicate but powerful re-reading of the acoustic blues of the 1920s, '30s and '40s. Ellis's father played with Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys, so there's also a nice country tinge to his dizzyingly dextrous chops. His lyrics are thoughtful, playful and even poetic. On, My Religion Too, he berates fundamentalists, while his version of Chuck Berry's Maybellene takes the song back to its country roots as Ida Red. Conqueroo on Yellow Dog Records is a beautiful album.