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Dave Ellis is an influential English folk guitarist, singer and composer whose music is extremely difficult to categorise, due to its unique diversity and combination of styles. His early instrumental influences include guitarist Bert Jansch.
Early career
Ellis' first vinyl album called "Album" (1973) won strong critical praise and is regarded as a classic, but the opportunity presented by acclaimed national TV and radio appearances (on such now-legendary TV shows as The Old Grey Whistle Test) was inexplicably never seized by his record company, at a time when the solo acoustic guitarist/singer-songwriter needed all the promotion they could get, no matter how good the material or performances.
As result of the lack of promotional follow-up at that time, Ellis's guitar prowess has remained one of the best kept secrets of the guitar fraternity, influencing such successful artists as Mark Knopfler.
Early contemporaries
Other guitarists with whom he has been favourably comapred include John Renbourn, John Fahey, Davey Graham, Nic Jones and at the time with American contemporary singer songwriter James Taylor.
Another important figure on the folk guitar scene at the time, Gordon Giltrap, also played on that album, a musician who seemed to share Dave's interest in pushing the steel strung acoustic guitar beyond the limits of folk conventions in terms of technique, sound and repertoire.
Bands
Ellis has had a succession of different musical excursions since his solo period (and at least one before it, called Fido):
- Astra
- The Dave Ellis Band
- Me and My Army
- The Reactors
- Brave Lucy
The bands were essentially pop/rock bands, rather than acoustic or folk. Dave was as exceptionally adept with an electric guitar as he was with an acoustic, shocking any itinerant guitarist who happened to be drinking in one of the London pubs where Ellis gigged that such an extraordinary player would be in a completely unknown band.
Much of the material was original, although Astra were known to put together a version of the Swinging Blue Jeans' 'You're no good' which blended well with the band's repertoire.
Recent Career
Dave has 'returned to his roots' and gone back to performing acoustic material in collaboration with Boo Howard who was a singer and bassist with his later band lineups and also composes songs.
Current material includes Bluegrass (Dave has added banjo playing to his skills and characteristically has begun to take the instrument to musical places it has never been before) as well as ragtime, blues and country music as well as some of Dave's own typically unique and unclassifiable 'quirky' compositions.
As a duo, Ellis and Howard have become as highly regarded for their extraordinarily evocative vocal harmonies (reminiscent of leading UK singing duo Clive Gregson and Christine Collister) as for Dave's playing.
Style
Dave is an honorary member of those unofficial and mythical societies of 'Guitar Innovators' and 'Guitar perfectionists', always trying to tease out some hidden capability, tone, or expression concealed within the instrument and constantly in search of ways to achieve ever greater clarity, depth and sensitivity from wire and wood.
The likes of Martin Simpson, Adrian Legg and Jerry Douglas are also members of these ethereal clubs, with much in common with Dave's approach.
External links
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