Tony Ellis channels the essence of bluegrass alongside old-time string band customs into an intimate solo approach centered on banjo and fiddle. He has earned five ASCAP composition awards and appeared on the 1997 national Masters of the Banjo tour organized by the National Folk Council for the Traditional Arts.
His grandmother, an old-time fiddler, introduced him to the two-finger banjo technique. A mid-1950s radio performance by Flatt & Scruggs prompted him to exchange his high-school trumpet for a resonator banjo. Following lessons with Swanson Walker and Don Reno, he entered Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys in 1960 and laid down 22 tracks across the ensuing two-and-a-half years. He shared a Carnegie Hall stage with Mac Wiseman in New York in 1962. Although he soon stepped away from steady touring, he kept refining his distinctive voice. While based for a time near Bristol, TN, he played old-time music alongside Bruce Mongle, George Pegram, and Tommy Jarrell. Later, after moving to south central Ohio, he performed with various bluegrass and old-time ensembles.
Stephen Wade produced two of Ellis’s albums, both of which drew strong critical notice. National Public Radio placed the 1987 release Dixie Banner among its five best records of that year. The Washington Post listed the 1993 album Farewell My Home on its yearly Top Ten roundup. Bill Ellis, a Cincinnati Conservatory of Music graduate holding a classical guitar degree, accompanied his father on both projects. Ellis supplied banjo and fiddle for the People’s Light and Theater Company’s 1993 staging of John Brown’s Body in Malvern, PA. Quaker Girl appeared in 1999, and Sounds Like Bluegrass to Me followed in mid-2000.
