Photo Credit: Alexandra Valenti
When people talk about Texas singer-songwriters, a certain type of sound comes to mind – the sounds made popular by the likes of Guy Clarke, Steve Earle, or Townes Van Zandt. But Austin’s Robert Ellis brings to mind a different kind of sound with “Fucking Crazy” – the easy, breezy sound of ’70s soft rock.
Yes, with his latest, Texas Piano Man, Ellis doesn’t just dip a toe into the sort of sounds made famous by the likes of Elton John, Billy Joel, and other songwriters of a ’70s/’80s vintage (I detect a hint of Bread’s David Gates in his delivery on this one) – he dives in head first. And the results are fantastic.
And though he’s serious about his music, Ellis also injects a certain sense of humour into his tunes (as you might expect from the man who entitled a previous album The Lights From The Chemical Plant), from “Topo Chico“, his drinking song about Texas’ favourite sparkling mineral water, to the aforementioned “Fucking Crazy”, which is probably the best piano-based pop song to feature the f-word since John Grant’s “GMF.” Check out the video below.
Robert Ellis plays the Mohawk on March 15 at 9:00pm.