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BiTS: I don't know whether this means anything to you, but I've got two radio shows in this
country, one of which is an acoustic blues show, and next week, on Wednesday, my album of the
week is Tinsley Ellis “Naked Truth”. There are going to be four tracks from the album. I don't know
which ones yet, but four tracks from the album on.

TE: Thank you so very much for that.

BiTS: I want to try and persuade you to come over to the UK and do all this here [chuckles].

TE: It's been a number of years since I've been there, but I would love to come back. I just don't
know how to make that happen. We don't have connections there. I mean, I play everywhere in
America and Canada, literally everywhere in
America and Canada. Occasionally I will come
Mose Allison – 1927- 2016
overseas to play. I think the last time I played
was at a festival in Belgium, and before that,
the year before that, I played a festival in
Poland. Then before that, I played two shows
in Russia. It's been too long.

BiTS: Your last name, Ellis, sounds very
Welsh to me. Do you have any links with

Wales?
TE: Yes, absolutely. That's where my people

are from and basically, Ireland, Scotland and
England as well. When I went back and
played in Wales in 1987, with Nappy Brown,
I felt like I was with my people.

BiTS: To go back to the music, tell me
something about the song ‘Grown Ass Man’,
which I think is absolutely fabulous. I love it.

TE: When I wrote that song, I wanted it to be in the spirit of Mose Allison. I'm a big Mose Allison
fan, and he comes up with those catchy phrases and makes you smile. So that song was my attempt
to do something in the Mose Allison vein. Now, of course he was a piano player and I play guitar,
so it turned into something else. I'm not exactly sure guitar-wise, what it’s reminiscent of, but I
can tell you that vocally and lyrically it's very much of a Mose Allison.

BiTS: Well, that's wonderful to know. I'm a huge Mose Allison fan, as well as being a Tinsley Ellis
fan, and I think that's absolutely terrific. It would be remiss of me, especially seeing as it's next
weekend, if I didn't ask you about the instrumental called ‘Easter Song’, what made you write
that?

TE: Well, that is something that I was messing around with a tuning that was used by people like
Bert Jansch and Jimmy Page, of course, who I think was obviously very influenced by Bert Jansch

and it's a different type of guitar tuning, where you have a lot of droning strings. I was just sitting
on my sofa, and I was playing it, and kept coming back to that little song, which was just sort of
something I would play. Then lo and behold, it became a song, and then I had to name it. I don't
remember exactly how I came up with that name, but it's hard to name instrumentals because
they don't have a phrase that's the same over and over again. So it's called the ‘Easter Song’ and
on Easter, I am playing in Annapolis, Maryland, which is a big naval academy.

BiTS: Yes, I’ve been there.