Ellis Kell’s tale could only be told through song
Three chords and the truth make up the fundamentals of the blues. Add a guitar and you get the medium that Quad-City musician Ellis Kell has used to celebrate life, mourn loss and recount the predicaments that life has brought his way.
He believes his best songs have come from deeply personal experiences such as the deaths of his father and teenage daughter.
“Sometimes they’re tough to do.” he said, “But those are the songs that really touch people’s hearts and they’re powerful because they’re real experiences, and, for me, it enabled me to express how much I loved my dad and my daughter and how much of an impact they both had on my life.”
“Irish Digger” is the song Kell wrote after his father died in 1994 and then modified when his daughter, Karli Rose Kell, 17, was killed in a one-car accident Oct. 19, 2002, near Andalusia, Ill. In it, Kell laments the moments they can no longer share, reflects on the lessons they taught him and takes solace at knowing that both are in heaven.
The song has helped him grieve, heal and remember.
“It helps me think that, no matter what I’ve been through, maybe someone else can learn from my experience and know that they’re not alone,” he said. “Music is therapeutic, and it can help you through the some bad times and it can help you celebrate the good times.
“I think music is one of the greatest gifts God ever gave this existence and this world. It’d be a pretty sad place without music.”
Fired from first band
The guitar-playing bluesman began his musical career at the tender age of 13 as a drummer in his first band. The group was called Genesis, a kids garage band, not the famed British rock group, but Kell likes to leave that detail out until the end of the story.
“I was a horrible drummer,” he said. “I actually got fired from the first band I was ever in and it broke my heart.”
That was when he picked up the guitar and, eventually, the piano, banjo, bass guitar, slide guitar and harmonica.
Kell played in bands throughout high school and college, but his music career came to a turning point when he graduated from Augustana College in 1979. He began playing with Diamondback, one of the top bands on the Quad-City club scene at the time and, for the first time, made some money with his music.
Next came a few years of playing solo before he joined The Blue Collar Band in 1984 and then established his own group, the Ellis Kell Band, in 1990 so he could play more original music.
The Ellis Kell Band spent three years honing its sound, arranging and refining music before recording its first album in 1993.
“We weren’t trying to sound like other bands,” he said. “We wanted to find out what we sounded like, and that’s the way we play everything now.”
Kell describes the band’s sound as a hybrid of the various styles of music each band member has played over the years. It’s heavily blues-influenced with elements of rock, country, jazz and fusion.
Acknowledged by a living legend
Before the Ellis Kell Band even had a chance to get comfortable with its sound, the band began opening for some major acts playing in the Quad-Cities.
The band has opened for, and shared the stage with, the likes of Jimmy Rogers, REO Speedwagon, Bo Diddley and B.B. King, Kell’s favorite musician.
“Playing with him (King) for the first time was like we were all walking about six inches off the ground,” Kell said. “He came up to us before the show, before we went on, and said, ‘How you doing tonight, boys?’ And we were all virtually speechless.
“It was the thrill of a lifetime for a musician. You can’t go much farther up the food chain than B.B. King. He’s considered the world’s ambassador of the blues.”
The Ellis Kell Band has now opened for King three times when the blues legend has stopped in the Quad-Cities on tour and will open for him again when King plays a May 31 concert at the Adler Theatre in Davenport.
“He always acknowledges us from the stage when he goes on and thanks us for opening for him,” Kell said. “We’ve played with some other big people who don’t do that, and for a performer of that magnitude to mention you by name from the stage, the first time it happened, we all just got chills.”
A gift from beyond him
Kell has never been a full-time musician, but he has been constantly surrounded by music in recent years by working as director of programming and education at the River Music Experience, or RME, in downtown Davenport.
Once a week, he takes the stage over the noon hour at Mojo’s in the RME for True Blue Mondays. All of the tips received during the performance help support educational programs at the RME.
“I feel very fortunate to be where I’m at,” he said. “I think the community has just started to realize in the last year or so what a gem it has here in the River Music Experience as a musical center for the entire community.”
Kell occasionally performs solo at charity events, with his trio the Whoozdads and at Calvary Church in Muscatine, Iowa, with worship arts pastor Andrew Landers.
“That’s a very fulfilling experience for me; it’s a whole different thing,” Kell said. “I don’t push my religious beliefs or my spiritual beliefs on anybody, but I’m willing to share them if somebody asks.
“I guess the reason it makes it easy for me to relate music and Christianity or a belief in God or faith or whatever you want to call it is I consider music a gift from beyond me, and I’ve always known that.”
That gift is present in Kell’s 2-year-old granddaughter, Karli Rose. She is named for her aunt, a Rock Island High School student who was just starting to realize her voice before she died.
“She already is singing all the time,” Kell said of his granddaughter. “I’m very proud. She loves to sing.”
Stephanie De Pasquale can be contacted at (563) 333-2639 or sdepasquale@qctimes.com.