By Paul T. Mueller
Robert Ellis
We should have a new album from singer-songwriter Robert Ellis in a few months, and if the shows he’s playing in the meantime are any indication, that album should be excellent. At his October 8 gig at McGonigel’s Mucky Duck in Houston, Ellis showcased five new tunes – a quarter of the 20-song set – and all sounded worthy of what he calls his best album yet.
Ellis, who grew up in Lake Jackson, not far from Houston, drew a near-capacity crowd, a notable achievement for a 9:30 show on a weeknight. He rewarded them with a solid two-hour performance that included not just his distinctive singing and masterful work on guitar and keyboard, but also healthy doses of personality and showmanship. After politely declining a beer offered by an audience member, he revealed that he had quit drinking several weeks ago. If this show was any indication, sobriety agrees with him. He filled the breaks between songs with cheerful back-and-forth with the audience, explanations of his music (and of his clothes), an enthusiastic endorsement of his new capo, and other such ramblings, frequently profane but always good-natured.
Standouts among the new songs included “You’re Not the One,” detailing the struggle to exorcise the memories of a love gone bad; “Drivin’,” a country-ish look at the aimlessness that can derail a productive life, and “Perfect Strangers,” a poppy song about love and loss that brought to mind, in its lyrics and its setting (New York), one of Ellis’ songwriting heroes, Paul Simon.
Kudos to Ellis for his choice of cover material as well. He performed a soulful rendition of Simon’s doleful “Hearts and Bones” – which, along with the album of the same name, was released five years before Ellis was born – and an excellent take on Tony Rice’s “Church Street Blues,” featuring some frenetic bluegrass picking.
The rest of the set consisted of older Ellis material, including “Bamboo,” a song based on his childhood; the uplifting “I’ll Never Give Up on You”; the straight country anthem “Coming Home”; “Bottle of Wine,” a rueful exploration of the dangers of self-medication; the cheerful “Couple Skate,” which he dedicated to a schoolboy crush, and the crowd-pleasing “Houston,” an ode to the city he once called home. Despite numerous requests, he didn’t sing “Chemical Plant,” the centerpiece of last year’s The Lights from the Chemical Plant, opting instead for several other songs from that album. He closed with an intense rendition of “Sing Along,” an angry blast at religion that he described as a reaction to having grown up in a very religious household.
Ellis, who was nominated for several Americana Music Association awards last year on the strength of Lights, told the Mucky Duck audience that his new album is now being mixed and should be released next spring.