★★★★★
Tinsley Ellis - who averages around 150 live performances a year - can burn up a fret board as hotly as Robin Trower and Johnny Winter, can keep his own alongside Buddy Guy and Eric Clapton, and is a grad of the Jimi and Stevie School of Guitar Heroes. The man can play...
- www.hour.ca
2011-02-14
★★★★★
Comparisons to Stevie Ray Vaughan aside, guitarist Tinsley Ellis is considered by many to be one of the few in the mass of followers who has managed to carve out his own identity in the world of blues-rock, a genre too often overcrowded with guitarist/vocalists immensely talented, but completely unoriginal. Dipping into the Texas blues of Freddie King and Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, B.B...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-01-20
★★★★★
He slings a mean ES345 in front of a good no-frills southern-rockin' unit built for the blues and set up for these 12 Ellis originals. Puts me in mind a bit of a latter-day Richard Betts or, if this were a NASCAR instead of a CD, a latter-day Richard Petty. Durable drivin' music, whether Highway 61 or Talladega. The opening title cut leads into Hooked, a hard-ass Texas 12-bar shuffle...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-09
★★★★★
He slings a mean-ass Gibson/Strat/Washburn and backs it up with some growly voice and songwriting. This is Ellis's seventh outing on the 'gator, recorded in the fetchingly named Chord on Blues in St. Charles, Illinois. The crowd liked it as the band rocked it soulfully through 75 minutes of hard blues like A Quitter Never Wins and The Last Song. Plenty of fonkifyin', like Hell or High Water, and rockers like The Next Miss Wrong...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-02
★★★★★
On assertive originals and standards by the likes of Jimmy Reed and Junior Wells, Atlanta's Tinsley Ellis unleashes feral blues guitar. Nonstop gigging has sharpened his six-string to a razor's edge; he wields it with equal precision on the Freddie King shuffle "Side Tracked" and his own strutter "Panhead." With Chuck Leavell providing rich keyboard accompaniment, Ellis' vocals have never sounded smokier. But it's on guitar that his eloquence dazzles...
- www.rollingstone.com
2009-06-08
★★★★★
I think Tinsley Ellis has reached the pinnacle of his career on The Hard Way. As a recording artist and producer, it does not seem he could get much better, however he does have many more albums left before his career is over. I have always been a strong advocate of his work, and it is obvious to me that every recording that Ellis releases is an improvement upon the last...
- www.jazzreview.com
2009-06-08
★★★★★
Longtime blues guitarist Tinsley Ellis has once again crafted an album that the elders of the genre would be proud of. The rather funky groove of "Say Too Much" is a bit of Sly and The Family Stone, yet Ellis' Clapton-circa-Cream-meaty chops seal the deal. "Somebody" sounds a tad too mundane. Fortunately Ellis generally sticks to what he does best which is a strong and genuine effort on the B.B. King-ish "You're Gonna Thank Me" which features some blistering picking and solos...
- www.popmatters.com
2009-03-20
★★★★★
While he might not be in the realm of legends like the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, Clapton, or B.B. King, Tinsley Ellis knows the blues and knows how to communicate those blues through his guitar. Last year's album The Hard Way made several people sit down and take notice of this performer, rather underrated outside of blues circles...
- www.popmatters.com
2008-11-11
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