Acoustic Songs & Stories Featuring Marcia Ball & Tinsley Ellis

Acoustic Songs and Stories is an intimate evening of music and memories starring blues musicians Marcia Ball and Tinsley Ellis. Ellis, an elder statesman of the blues world, will perform popular songs from his 20 albums plus some Delta blues and classics on his National steel and Martin acoustic guitars. Ball, a five-time Grammy nominee, will play the piano and sing her often raucous and sometimes touching original songs, which are chock-full of the characters and places that shaped her. In addition to performing sets of their own songs, Ball and Ellis close the night as a duo, playing songs together and swapping tales of their travels and travails, weaving music with stories from their years on stage and on the road.

Marcia Ball, the 2018 Texas state musician, has won worldwide acclaim for her ability to ignite a full-scale roadhouse party every time she takes the stage. Her deep Acadian heritage and lifetime spent absorbing Gulf Coast rhythm and blues are evident in her original songs and the classics she covers. With every release, Ball’s reputation as a profoundly soulful singer, a boundlessly talented pianist, and a courageous, inventive songwriter grows.

Georgia troubadour Tinsley Ellis has been immersed in music his whole life. Born in Atlanta in 1957 and raised in southern Florida, he got his first guitar at 7 years old, inspired by seeing the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. Like many kids his age, Ellis discovered the blues through the back door of British Invasion bands like the Yardbirds, Cream and the Rolling Stones as well as Southern rockers like the Allman Brothers Band.

Marcia Ball:

Rollicking, playful, good-time blues and intimate, reflective balladry . . . her songs ring with emotional depth.

—Rolling Stone

Tinsley Ellis:

Ellis unleashes a torrent of dazzling musicianship pitched between the exhilarating volatility of rock and roll and the passion of urban blues.

—Los Angeles Times