ELLEN McILWAINE: Prolific Female Slide Guitarist

Slide guitar maven Ellen McIlwaine has a 44 year career under her belt and is not about to slow down.  Her long history includes performing and recording with musicians such as Jack Bruce, Taj Mahal, and Jeff Healey, creating movie scores, touring the world and so much more.

You can see Ellen McIlwaine perform an intimate solo show LIVE in Cleveland at The Winchester on Saturday, Sept. 26th, 2009.  Showtime is 9:00pm.  Admission is $14.00.  Local country-folk artist Rebekah Jean opens the show.  Visit www.thewinchester.net for information and directions.

Ellen McIlwaine

From Ellen’s website bio (http://www.ellenmcilwaine.com):

“2009 makes forty four years as a professional musician!  After returning to the US for two years of college in 1963, she began playing Acoustic Guitar in Atlanta Georgia while attending Art School, moved to Greenwich Village in 1966, opening for many Blues Greats, and getting to know Odetta, Richie Havens, Mississippi John Hurt and Jimi Hendrix.”

“Moving to Woodstock NY in 1968 and recording Fear Itself with her group of the same name, she gained cult status through her two Polydor albums “Honky Tonk Angel” 1972 and “We the People” 1973.  These were followed by “The Guitar Album”, a compilation of all the guitar players on Polydor in 1974: Link Wray, Rory Gallagher, John McLaughlin, Roy Buchannan to name a few.  Ellen was the only female player.”

“Exposed to everything from Japanese Folk and Classical Music, American Rhythm & Blues greats like Ray Charles, Fats Domino and Professor Longhair on Japanese radio, as well as the Grand Ole Opry on American Armed Forces Radio, while growing up in an International Community of families from India, Pakistan, the Middle East, China, Korea, Eastern and Western Europe, she was playing “World Music” before it was called World Music!”

A comprehensive Canadian Music article about Ellen McIlwaine can be found here:

http://www.laventure.net/tourist/ellenbio.htm

An amazing video of Ellen McIlwaine performing “La Guitara“: