User:Ellsman~enwiki

Ellsworth
is a songwriter/singer/performer who has performed with his band, as a duo or a solo artist since the 1970’s. But he never made an album until 1999 when he and longtime partner Phil Hicks released their debut acoustic, country/blues record, "Ask Around". (It was selected as a finalist in the 2000 Crossroads Music Awards). Why did the first album take so long when he had so many songs under his belt? “I think I was one of those crazy people that just thought the world would find me if I was good enough” he says. “People always loved my songs in clubs and I thought that sooner or later something would happen…or maybe I was just waiting for the turn of the century”. Bands came and went but the consistent thing was always the songs. They come from that place down inside where things mingle and grind for months or even years before making an appearance. The result is a smart blend of Rootsy Rock, Blues, Country and World music, drawn together from that Great Rock & Roll Superhyway. His newest CD, "American Compost", is a smart, rockin' romp down the Great American Rock & Roll Superhighway; a dynamic array of tunes that demand attention from the first note with razor-sharp lyrics and driving beats. It’s a loose collection of rockers and ballads that look for, and sometimes find, hope in the face of decay and destruction. As he says on the liner notes, “The cutting edge is not the whole story. What’s vanished is not lost. What gets passed on is the essence, the heart, the spirit, the compost, from which everything grows”.

Besides songwriting and performing, Ellsworth began producing music shows around the New York and New England area. His summertime Sunset Music Series on “the barge” in Brooklyn’s Redhook has become one of the coolest, sought after gigs in NYC. He also produces the Bull Run Concert Series at the Bull Run Restaurant in Massachusetts where he brings in “All the great performers I admired growing up.” This gave him the opportunity to meet and share the stage with some giants like Leon Russell, Levon Helm, Graham Parker, Maria Muldaur and Johnny Winter.

Some of Ellsworth’s original songs have been featured on radio, internet and feature films. “The Moon is a Faithless Lover” was in Ghetto Dawg with Drena DeNiro and Gianna Palminteri. And “The Things I Gotta Do to Stay Alive - Are Killing Me” was in The Clinic, an independent film that won Best Screenplay in the NYII Film Festival. His song “Up Above the World” was picked for the 2004 UMO Music: The 14 Best Singer/Songwriters of Greenwich Village compilation CD.