We have a happy-sad occasion here: Bill Ellis and his family will shortly be heading off to St. Michael's College, up near Burlington, Vermont, where he has been offered a tenure-track position. He didn't exactly back up to the pay window, having most thoroughly earned his ethnomusicology degree under the exacting standards of Dave Evans at the University of Memphis. And you better bet that he'll be moonlighting as a highly sought-after performer up there, too. So before he goes, MAMA's giving him one last shot at the Memphis audience he wrote for and played for innumerable times in the fifteen years he lived here.

Bill was the best music critic the Commercial Appeal ever had. His commentary improved the general quality of performance around here, because he could outplay anybody he reviewed, they all knew it, and it kept them on their toes. Both a songwriter's songwriter, and a preservationist's preservationist, there is simply nothing he can't do with a guitar in any American style, from backing up the genius banjo playing of his own dad, Tony Ellis, to playing any of the South's most demanding regional Blues styles.

We wish him and his family the very best. This will be your one last chance to see him, to hear him, to be flabbergasted by his fluency and exalted by his command of language and style. This is your last chance to say, “I knew him when.”

Expect Bill to be joined by some very special guests on the 29th.


William Lee Ellis
Friday, July 29
Otherlands Coffee Bar
641 South Cooper Street
(901) 278-4994
8:00 p.m.
$12
 

This project has been funded through an Arts Build Communities Grant, a program funded by the Tennessee General Assembly and administered in cooperation with the Tennessee Arts Commission and ArtsMemphis.