Who is Ellis, this Texan/Minnesotan with the contagious laugh, big smile and beautiful voice? Is she becoming a leading light in a new generation of folk singers?

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"Ellis was a standout at the Memphis Folk Alliance. Besides her obvious talent, youthful enthusiasm and charm she was a breath of fresh air in a business where record companies stifle creativity by promoting formulistic songwriting. Ellis follows her own muse and it has served her well as she is in the vanguard of youthful singer songwriters who have infused hope and optimism into what amounts to a rebirth of folk music. Folk is cool again."

-Georgianne Nienaber, member, Memphis Chapter of the Recording Academy (Grammy) and pro bono publicist and producer for NOLA musicians hit by Katrina, including Susan Cowsill and Kim Carson

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Who is Ellis?

Her full name, Ellis Grace Bergeron, didn't quite cut it on the concert circuit, too many mispronounceable syllables. So she simplified her performing name to Ellis, and the rest is history.

Raised in Texas but based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota since she was sweet sixteen, Ellis knew she was destined for the limelight, and began composing and singing her own songs at open mics while still in high school, even joining a rock band then and founding her own record label, Rubberneck. In 1996 at the age of 20 or so, she cut her first solo CD, Soft Day. I imagine Garrison Keillor must be in love with such a lethal combination of Texan, Minnesotan and songstress, guitarist, lyricist and composer, all rolled into one! I assume she must have been on his show, Prairie Home Companion, at least once by now.

She is hot locally, in Minneapolis that is, as well as nationally, her credits including the Club Passim, Caffe Lena, P.A.C.E., Outpost in the Burbs, to name just a few prominent gigs, and in 2006 she was voted "Most Wanted to Return" at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, no small feat. Other festivals have included the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival, the Michigan Women's Music Festival, the Loyalist City Folk Festival in Canada, and Telluride Bluegrass Festival.

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In 2007 she was a showcase artist at the Northeast Regional Folk Alliance Conference, and in 2008 had a double whammy as a showcaser at both the North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance Conference and Susquehanna Music and Arts Festival.

But enough about accolades! Let's talk about her music, in particular her sixth and most recent, also most innovative album:

BREAK THE SPELL

Break the Spell, released in 2008, begins by weaving a lovely little instrumental, acoustic guitar piece called "Lake Calhoun", so simple and clear that one can easily imagine oneself gazing upon glistening, sparkling lake water on a warm Spring day. This is Ellis's musical signature, her acoustic guitar, and she is just warming up with this piece, for the guitar work throughout this album can be expressively dynamic in her hands. When she gets fired up, she isn't just accompanying with guitar, she is pulsating guitar as she sings, lucidly, nimbly and dramatically. With a freedom of style and rhythm reminiscent of Joni Mitchell, her chords soar and fade, leap and dance, grow quiet and whisper, or suddenly explode again, defying that rigid structure and boring repetition we often hear in so many Top 40 melodies. Dramatic range is particularly telling in three of her songs on this album, Hurricane, Blackbird and Red Light.

Ellis's showcases her lyrical talents beginning with the second track, entitled "How Would it Be", proving herself to be a serious creative writer with a sense of metaphor, simile and even enlightened philosophy, a philosophy she is eager to share with her audiences, for she is known to be upbeat, filled with laughter, joy and humor on the circuit, simply refreshing to experience in the raw, and you can clearly see that in her videos as well. Take a look at her lyrics in "How Would it Be", which she calls a song of hope and possibilities, a song she says she has to play everyday:

How Would it Be

 

How would it be if everything that you thought you knew

Was turned upside down opposite from your point of view

How would you feel if the ground was really the sky and all of

this time you've been walkin' when you coulda been ...flying

If you run a thousand miles a minute you can expect

to wear out a few pairs of shoes.

If you forget how to love and take it for granted

You can expect to wear out the people that are

Close to you

What if all the birds were flying just to show us

All the trees were really holdin' the sky up

Everything that you do matters somehow

What if heaven and hell was right now    

How would it be if you really created your life?

Stories you told, the good and bad, that they come alive

And how would it change if your words were like nails and wood?

You build your house, but you forget that it's just a house

You can rebuild it

What if all the birds were flying just to show us

All the trees were really holdin' the sky up

Everything that you do matters in the end

What if all of our mistakes are forgiven?

What if love is a lot of listening

A little bit of time not pretending

We are caught up in a world of daydreams

What if loving what you have is everything?     

What if all the birds were flying just to show us

And all the trees were really holdin' the sky up

And everything that you do matters so much

If you knew you could not fail

If the ground was really sky

Would you stop walkin' right now

Would you let yourself

What if everything you think is the opposite of true

How would it change your life?

How would you change your life?

Ellis is asking us to step out of our illusions, out of our dreary, earthbound ruts in life, as we slog through the mud, pulled down by gravity. There is some Zen wisdom at play here (if not some thoughts from documentaries like What the Bleep and The Secret too), which warns us that we tend to endlessly obscure Reality with programming, stereotypes and fantasies bouncing around like pinballs in our minds, with one foot in the past and another in the future, never really BEING HERE NOW.  When you're not here, not in the now, you can miss love and friendship staring you right in the face. You can trample on others and not even know it, burning your bridges without even smelling it. Being here now is the foundation for love:

What if love is a lot of listening

A little bit of time not pretending

Be conscious of your actions, words and thoughts she is saying, for every one of them has consequences, whether you realize it or not. If you are not aware of them, you are like a bus-driver asleep at the wheel. Good luck as you drive off that cliff! Actions, words and thoughts are the building blocks of your life. Use them wisely and soar high like the birds. This IS a universe of infinite possibilities, so no need to be fatalistic. As a synchronicity, someone just sent me this on Facebook:

All is well, right here, right now

Try being here, now for the video:

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Another song of note from a progressive perspective is her brief venture into political commentary in "City on Fire":

City On Fire

This city is on fire
Everything is burning down
How did it all get started
Did we know before now
This city is on fire
Whose God will be louder
Everything's burning down
This city is on fire

In my backyard
In my neighbor's house
Across the ocean
Fire on the ground
I don't hear them cry
I don't hear the sound
Why don't I hear the sound

I think about what I'd say
Kids those are firecrackers
We're playing war today
Our turn to run for cover
The soldiers will arrive
To capture the survivors
No safety in this place
This city is on fire

No count down
No warning siren
The walls crash
The sky is falling

Who decides who is worth more
How come some things we kill for
When does the oil run dry
When will we see through the lies

In my backyard
In my neighbor's house
Across the ocean
Fire all around
We don't hear them cry
We don't hear the sound
Why don't we hear the sound
This city's on fire

Check out the video for full effect:

The imagery and words in this piece are vivid, painful and conscience-searing without being event-specific, instead decrying the universality of this horror, indeed indicating, ironically, that our turn may come next. Why can't we see through the lies or hear the sounds of cities burning, people crying, people dying? Is it that same disconnect alluded to above? – to wit:

What if everything you think is the opposite of true

How would it change your life?

Isn't it all about everyone waking up?

Another memorable song on this album has to be "Blackbird". This is a "Coyote/Free Man in Paris" genre-evocative piece, richly textured and guitar-intricate, that just keeps on rambling and rolling across the mental and visual landscapes from start to finish at a lively, spontaneous pace. I couldn't find the text for the lyrics, but did find it on YouTube, which includes some preliminary storytelling:

There is much more on this album, including slower, retrospective and introspective songs about love and loss, too much to cover in one review, but even those works tinged with sadness and heartbreak seem to find resolution in the positive, as Ellis manages, in song after song, to stay tethered to that miraculous Lightness of Being that lets us walk in the sky.

 

If you want to check out Ellis's website, go to: http://www.ellis-music.com/news/

Artistic note: Break the Spell also features Duke Levine on back-up guitars, Zev Katz on bass, and Joe Bonadio on drums, with cameos by Jonatha Brooke vocal backup and Shawn Pelton on drums.

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Authors Bio:
I am a student of history, religion, exoteric and esoteric, the Humanities in general and a tempered advocate for the ultimate manifestation of peace, justice and the unity of humankind through self-realization and mutual respect, although I am not a pacifist, nor do I believe in peace at any price, which is no peace at all but only delays inevitable conflict. There are times when the world must act. Planetary consciousness is evolving, but there are many retrograde forces that would drag us back down.

I have also written one book, a combination of poetry, photography and essays entitled "Post Katrina Blues", my reflections on the Gulf Coast and New Orleans two years after Katrina struck. Go to the store at http://sanfranciscobaypress.com/ to purchase. And I also have a blog called Plutonian Mac.