Tinsley Ellis - Storm Warning CDs • Vinyl Records • LPs • Music Albums

On assertive originals and standards by the likes of Jimmy Reed and Junior Wells, Atlanta's Tinsley Ellis unleashes feral blues guitar. Nonstop gigging has sharpened his six-string to a razor's edge; he wields it with equal precision on the Freddie King shuffle "Side Tracked" and his own strutter "Panhead." With Chuck Leavell providing rich keyboard accompaniment, Ellis' vocals have never sounded smokier. But it's on guitar that his eloquence dazzles. Grounded in a classic style sometimes recalling Albert Collins, sometimes Lonnie Mack, he also achieves pyrotechnics that rival early Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton. (Alligator, 800-344-5609.) (RS 692)

PAUL EVANS