Ellen McIlwaine is an American singer-songwriter and musician best known for her career as a slide guitarist. Born in Nashville, McIlwaine was adopted by missionaries and raised in Kobe, Japan, giving her exposure to multiple languages and cultures. She attended Canadian Academy, a K-12 international school in Kobe, graduating in 1963. Her first experience in music was playing Ray Charles, Fats Domino and Professor Longhair songs on piano that she heard on Japanese radio. On moving to back to the United States she bought a guitar, beginning a stage career in Atlanta, Georgia in the mid-1960s. In 1966, she had a stint in New York City's Greenwich Village where she opened every night at the Cafe Au Go Go, playing with a young Jimi Hendrix, and opening for Muddy Waters, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, and Big Joe Williams. She returned to Atlanta to form the band Fear Itself, a psychedelic blues-rock band. After recording one album with Fear Itself, McIlwaine went solo, recording two albums for Polydor, Honky Tonk Angel (1972) and We the People (1973), the latter featuring a hit single, "I Don't Want to Play". Those albums, and most of her work since, have featured McIlwaine's approach to acoustic slide guitar. Honky Tonk Angel is the 1972 debut solo album by Ellen McIlwaine, following her departure from Fear Itself. The first side of the album contains songs that were recorded live at The Bitter End in New York City while side two of the record is made up of studio recordings. The album was re-released on CD in 1993.
01 - Toe Hold 02 - Weird Of Hermiston 03 - Up From The Skies 04 - Losing You 05 - It's Growing 06 - Ode To Billy Joe 07 - Pinebo (My Story) 08 - Can't Find My Way Home 09 - Wings Of A Horse 10 - It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels 11 - Wade In The Water
