‘The anti-Dylan’: Guitar legend Tinsley Ellis on his blues-rock background and acoustic shift ahead of Santa Fe and ABQ tour dates

Hot on the heels of his 2026 album, “Labor of Love,” Atlanta guitarist and singer Tinsley Ellis is on the road, performing a solo acoustic set he describes as more folky and earthy than his earlier hard-rocking sound. He will appear at Unit B by Chocolate Maven in Santa Fe on Saturday, March 14, and Outpost Performance Space in Albuquerque on Sunday, March 15.

For decades, Ellis played a heavy style of electric blues that was influenced by B.B. King and Jimi Hendrix. Rolling Stone magazine said he achieved “pyrotechnics that rival early Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton.” Then, in 2024, he unplugged.

“When I did the first acoustic album, which was ‘Naked Truth’ — that was two years ago — I think everyone thought I would just do that and get it out of my system,” Ellis said. “But that album did very well — probably better than anything I could have come up with electrically — so, when I said I’m going to do another acoustic one, they (his label, Alligator Records) said, ‘OK, well, choose the songs.’ So, here I am with ‘Labor of Love.’”

“What I’ve done — having started off as a hard-rocking blues rocker, then going acoustic — is sort of the opposite of what Bob Dylan did,” Ellis added. “As a folk artist, he plugged in and got wild. I kind of did the anti-Dylan.”

For his current four-month tour, Ellis is driving himself across the country — one man, alone on the road, with a mandolin and three specially tuned guitars.

“This is not normal behavior for a 68-year-old man,” he said, “but maybe this is what keeps me feeling young, actually.”

“When I first started playing, I thought it would be more like The Monkees’ TV show, where they were just up on stage with everyone screaming, and they never showed them packing up their equipment. Or The Beatles’ ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ movie, where they were just chased down the street by fans,” Ellis said. “It’s never been like that for me, and it doesn’t look like it’s gonna be like that.”

Although not as glamorous as the jet-setting Beatles, Ellis’ road warrior lifestyle is closer to that of the bluesmen he admired in his youth.

“B.B. King had a bus, but Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters traveled in a station wagon,” Ellis said. “There was really no glamour that I witnessed in their traveling conditions.”

Ellis, who grew up in South Florida, saw B.B. King play live when he was 15.

“He was playing a teen show. He did a week long engagement in a North Miami Beach Hotel that had a lounge in it, and he was booked there for a week,” Ellis said. “I mean, that’s magic. Going to see B.B. King every night in a small bar? I would do that for the rest of my life, if I could.”

“When I saw B.B. King, it was a real a-ha moment,” Ellis continued. “All of a sudden, I could see where Duane Allman and Eric Clapton and others were getting their sound from.”

From that point on, he was hooked on the blues and sought out other blues legends.

“I was that annoying kid who would follow the old blues guys around and ask questions and want to get my picture taken with them and get their autographs,” he said.

He recalls sitting at the feet of great bluesmen like Howlin’ Wolf, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters, trying to absorb as much of their brilliance as he could. In time, he got to know some of them personally and occasionally shared a stage with them.

“They were very colorful people, compared to people who play blues nowadays,” Ellis said. “One time, we were on tour with John Lee Hooker, and a local harmonica player came backstage and asked if he could sit in. John Lee Hooker opened up his jacket, showed his gun and said, ‘I’m shooting harmonica players.’ The guy scurried out of the dressing room. I’d say that falls into the ‘colorful personality’ category.”

Although Ellis is often called a blues musician, he thinks that label should more properly be reserved for the people who originated the genre.

“I’m a rock ’n’ roller who loves the blues. That’s really the best description of me compared to the people who invented the blues — African American people in the Mississippi Delta, who were farmers. A lot of them just played blues on the weekends at some kind of juke joint in Mississippi or something. That’s an experience that I have not had. I’ve never farmed. They just had a much harder time,” Ellis said. “I think modern people can mostly only interpret (the blues), rather than create it anymore.”

Still, he hopes his music will help keep the memory of those great blues performers alive.

“During my show — it’s not just music. I talk in between songs and tell a lot of stories like I’m telling you right now, about these legends,” Ellis said. “So, throughout my show, I talk about the blues without being too, like, ‘educational,’ because it’s a concert, not a blues clinic. But I like to throw in some stories ... and give the old originators of blues the respect they deserve.”

Ellis said the thing he appreciates most about early blues music is its raw energy.

“Most of the music I like — whether it’s early Elvis Presley or early blues — it’s got all kind of mistakes in it,” he said. “They speed up or have distortion on it, stuff like that, but you’re capturing the moment, you know? Maybe the fidelity isn’t great, but it’s got the raw emotion of American roots music.”

His own music has become more raw and emotionally vulnerable, he said, since going acoustic.

“There’s no place to hide on acoustic guitar; that’s for sure. As a solo performer, I can’t lean on the beat of the drums or the thunder of the bass. In fact, sometimes, when they come and get me to go on stage, it’s almost like the executioner has come to take me to the gallows — I’m up there all by myself,” Ellis said. “But that’s a cool feeling that I didn’t have when I played in bands for over 50 years, when I would just go up there and sort of become part of a big, thunderous sound. ... When I go on now ... there’s no show business about it. I’m just walking out there and having to create from scratch.”

Logan Royce Beitmen is an arts writer for the Albuquerque Journal. He covers visual art, music, fashion, theater and more. Reach him at lbeitmen@abqjournal.com or on Instagram at @loganroycebeitmen.