Happy little coincidences are a wonderful thing, especially when they turn chance encounters into magical human connections. If you live long enough and keep your eyes open, you’ll find them when you’re least expecting it.

I spoke by phone with legendary Atlanta-based blues rock guitarist Tinsley Ellis about his Naked Truth Tour, which stops in Fort Wayne on Saturday, March 16, at Baker Street Centre. 

Soft Spot for The Fort

Ellis and I are of the age that we quickly turn to reminiscing, and we found a couple of those happy little coincidences along the way.

Before we really got started, I told Ellis I saw him at The Slippery Noodle in downtown Indianapolis in the early ’90s, which got him thinking about his first solo tour after relocating to Chicago. It stopped in Fort Wayne, arranged by his dear friend Doc West, a longtime radio DJ. He couldn’t recall the venue, but he has always kept a soft spot in his heart for the Summit City.

“Fort Wayne has always been full of coincidences and always been full of magic, and we’ve really enjoyed playing at C2G,” Ellis said of the venue now known as Baker Street Centre. “I always see so many old friends there. 

“It was one of the first places, first towns, I played outside of the Southeast when I got with Alligator Records in ’88. It’s probably because its proximity to Chicago. I would play there along with Chicago and Ann Arbor and places like that. So, it’s really part of my old circuit when first getting with Chicago. 

“I have to mention Doc West, who gave me my start there in town by playing me. And the love for that man is always at every show that I play there.”

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Ellis worked out of Chicago for a while, but his roots go back to the Southeast. 

He gained international recognition when NBC featured him during coverage of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. 

“All eyes were on Atlanta in 1996 for the Olympics, and they’re talking specifically about where to come in Atlanta to hear some indigenous Georgia music, and they interviewed me,” he said.

“I’ll tell you something about it that I don’t usually tell, and it’s an interesting coincidence. My interview was shot while I was on the road for this segment. It was not shot while I was in Atlanta, and it was shot on stage before a performance at The Slippery Noodle. So, The Slippery Noodle got some love out of that, too. They had their sign behind me on the wall, and it was on network news.”

Stripped down

Ellis isn’t just a road act. He’s recorded a ton of interesting music, including a couple of collections he made just for the fans and for the challenge. 

I asked him about his newest release with Alligator Records, Naked Truth. It’s just Ellis and an acoustic guitar. No backing band, just him.

“Well, Naked Truth is an album that I always wanted to make, and it’s an album that fans have asked for a long time,” he said. “I’ve been doing a little acoustic part of my electric shows in the middle of the show every night for years, and this is the full extension of that. 

“Plus, during the pandemic, I was doing a Sunday morning coffee song post on the internet every week, where I would do either an original song or sometimes a cover song like Bob Dylan or Greg Allman or something like that. I did that all through almost two years for the pandemic.

“All of a sudden, I assembled this list and I thought, ‘Well, gosh. I’ve got all these songs. And the response is really great online, and then the response is great during the acoustic breakdown part of the show.’ 

“And I thought, ‘I think I would really like to do an all-acoustic album.’ And so I brought it to the record label, and we tossed it around, and they insisted that it would still have a lot of guitar playing in it, because that’s primarily what I’m known for. And they also insisted that it would have mostly original material, rather than just me rehashing blues standards or something like that. They worked me pretty hard on it, and we came up with a nice blend of all those things.”

Going against grain

Naked Truth isn’t the first time Ellis did something a little out of the ordinary. 

His 2013 release Get It! was entirely instrumental — full band with a driving piano and his searing guitar. 

“Well, very much like this new album, that was a specialty type album, an album I hadn’t done before, an album I always wanted to make, and an album that fans had asked for,” he said. “I usually put instrumental songs on my albums, and someone combined all of those into, I believe it was a cassette tape — that’s how long ago it was — and made a mixtape of all my instrumentals. He showed me the tape. It said Tinstrumentals, like a play on Tinsley and instrumentals. Tinstrumentals. 

“I wanted to make a Tinstrumental album, and did that.

“I was not able to get my record company on board with it. Alligator was skeptical, and so I started my own record label, and they were skeptical as well! And you know what? That album has turned out to be a fan favorite, so much so that after it was out for, oh gosh, five years, I made a vinyl version of it. And so that has turned into a fan favorite, that instrumental album.” 

As we were wrapping up, we hit one more coincidence.

“Oh, I just thought of the name of the first Fort Wayne venue that I played at,” he said. Was it called Columbia Street?”

“Yep, Columbia Street West,” I said.

“Thank you, God, it came to me,” he said. “I would’ve been up all night trying to remember. Those were some magic shows.”

At that point, I had to let him know that place had a strong meaning to me, too. It was where my wife and I went on our first date.

Maybe Ellis is right about Fort Wayne. Coincidences and magic.