Ellen McIlwaine Was a Goddess Forward of Her Time » PopMatters
Together with his first award-winning documentary, 2017’s Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World, director Alfonso Maiorana illuminated the profound affect of musicians of Indigenous heritage, together with Hyperlink Wray, Robbie Robertson, Jesse Ed Davis, Jimi Hendrix, and Charlie Patton, on the evolution of rock music. His new movie, Goddess of Slide: The Forgotten Story of Ellen McIlwaine, will solid a long-overdue mild on one other under-profiled character from rock historical past.
Maiorana’s 2024 Ellen McIlwaine documentary is the saga of a massively gifted American feminine guitar innovator, vocalist, and songwriter who grew to become one of the vital buzzed-about artists within the late Sixties Greenwich Village scene. She was a critics’ darling and a real “musicians’ musician” who briefly flirted with fame however would discover herself out of the music enterprise and making ends meet as a faculty bus driver by the tip of her life. Her two traditional Polydor albums of the early ’70s are revered by musicians like Taj Mahal, Ani DiFranco, Jennifer Batten, Sue Foley, and Melissa Auf Der Maur, all featured within the movie.
I attended the New York premiere of Goddess of Slide at Upstate Movies’ Orpheum Theater in Saugerties, New York, a number of miles from Woodstock, the place Ellen McIlwaine spent some memorable years within the Nineteen Seventies. The theater was full of outdated pals and followers, lots of whom had witnessed her performances at long-gone Woodstock venues like Sled Hill and The Tinker Road Café. Additionally current to share recollections of and to carry out had been dobro and pedal metal grasp Cindy Cashdollar and the Band’s guitarist Jim Weider, who had jammed with McIlwaine early of their careers.
Maiorana is rolling out the movie at occasions just like the Doc ‘N Roll festivals in Boston and New York Metropolis in Could 2025, Canada’s Scorching Docs, and a return to Upstate Movies on 6 April as he finalizes its theatrical and streaming distribution. On this interview, Maiorana tells the exceptional story of how Goddess of Slide got here to be, the way it survived, and the way it modified with Ellen McIlwaine’s sudden demise earlier than its completion. The director additionally addressed the potential and obstacles filmmakers face within the music documentary subject.
Earlier than you produced your present movie on Ellen McIlwaine, you co-directed the award-winning music documentary Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World. How did that challenge come about, and the way did it fare with critics and within the market?
In 2010, I used to be approached by an Indigenous manufacturing firm from Montreal named REZOLUTION Footage, owned by government producers Catherine Banbridge and Ernest Webb. They attended an exhibit on the Smithsonian Establishment’s Nationwide Museum of the American Indian, created by its Six Nations Affiliate Director Tim Johnson. The exhibit was known as “Up The place We Belong: Native Museums in Standard Tradition”.
The producers, who knew I had a protracted love for music historical past and expertise as a director and cinematographer, requested me if I knew concerning the Indigenous background of legendary musicians akin to Jimi Hendrix, Richie Valens, Robbie Robertson, Hyperlink Wray, and Mildred Mailey. I replied an absolute YES!
Whereas dwelling and dealing in Vancouver as a digital camera assistant and operator, I visited the Hendrix Home owned by Jimi’s grandmother, Nora Hendrix, who had Indigenous roots. As a 14-year-old teenager rising up in Montreal and discovering the Conflict, Joe Strummer launched me to Hyperlink Wray, the inventor of the power-chord and the notorious [due to its street-fighting title] music, “Rumble”. That have was mixed with the epic work and e book of Six Nations author Brian Wright McLeod; The Encyclopedia of Native Music, and the thought for Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World, a documentary function movie, was born.
After six years of analysis and filming, Rumble gained a prestigious award at Sundance 2017: the World Cinema Documentary Particular Jury Award for Masterful Storytelling. The movie gained over a dozen awards, akin to Scorching Docs 2017 and Doc ’N Roll London, and an EMMY nomination in 2020. It racked up all three awards on the CSA in Canada for Greatest Canadian Documentary, Greatest Enhancing, and Greatest Cinematography. Rumble was co-directed/co-written with Catherine Bainbridge, and I additionally served because the cinematographer.
Along with your new documentary about Ellen McIlwaine, you might be profiling an artist who is a bit more obscure than, say, Robbie Robertson, who was featured in Rumble. How did you meet McIllwaine, and the way did the movie come about?
Whereas filming Rumble in New Orleans in 2014, Cyril Neville of the Neville Brothers urged me to buy a Polydor Information compilation album entitled The Guitar Album. The album featured a number of the best guitarists, akin to Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, Rory Gallagher, and Hyperlink Wray. When I discovered it and appeared on the again sleeve, I noticed Eric Clapton, Hyperlink Wray, Rory Gallagher, and a feminine singer/guitarist named Ellen McIlwaine.
On the time, I all the time traveled with my transportable report participant for the movie shoot, so after I returned to my resort, I used to be curious to hear and uncover who she was. I observed a music, “We the Individuals”, carried out and recorded dwell at Carnegie Corridor. The second the needle settled on the vinyl, I obtained chills listening to that guitar sound, adopted by her distinctive skat singing. The guitar sound was electrical, half sitar and half acoustic. I had by no means heard something prefer it.
4 years later, Rumble had a profitable pageant run and had begun a North American theatrical launch. One very late night time, I acquired an e-mail from a fan of the movie that learn:
“Howdy, my identify is Ellen and I simply wish to say it’s about freaking’ time somebody made a film about Indigenous contributions to music. Seeing a few of my outdated pals in your movie was so pretty. I’ve seen it thrice this month and am telling everybody about it.”
So, I responded: ‘’Thanks for these type phrases…are you a musician your self or within the music business?”
She replied: “Nicely, I used to dabble in music myself. I play slide guitar, and my declare to fame is that I should be the one girl ever to share the stage for six nights in a row with Jimi Hendrix! My identify is Ellen McIlwaine.”
I paused for a couple of minutes and couldn’t work out why that identify sounded acquainted. Then I shortly searched my vinyl assortment and located The Guitar Album along with her identify on it. Instantly, I emailed her again, asking: “ Are you Ellen McIlwaine from the Guitar Album?
“Sure, that’s me.”
“Can I name you?”
We laughed collectively! She wrote, “Sure, however solely on weekends!”
In order that started a two-year phone friendship, throughout which I listened to her private story and distinctive musical journey. After watching her carry out on the “A Girl in Blues” live performance in Toronto, Canada, in November 2019, we met backstage for the primary time in individual.
I mentioned to Ellen, “I wish to make a movie about you.” She smiled, mentioned, “OK”. We hugged, and had been off.
Ellen McIlwaine’s life earlier than music was additionally fascinating. Inform us a bit about her early years, adoption, and rising up because the daughter of Christian missionaries in Japan.
At 5 weeks outdated, Ellen was adopted by missionaries in Nashville, Tennessee, after which moved to Kobe, Japan, the place she attended the Canadian Academy Worldwide Faculty. Her dad and mom had no youngsters and had been of their 50s. Think about an American couple in post-World Struggle II Japan with an adopted daughter attending a Canadian Academy faculty.
These years in Japan had been magical for Ellen at instances. She discovered English, French, and Japanese. She had a detailed relationship along with her father however not a wholesome one along with her mom. She sang within the church choir for her father’s mission and performed the piano at church, the place Southern conservative gospel hymns had been taught.
There have been additionally tumultuous instances for Ellen within the face of rising up in a conservative Presbyterian family. It was by no means proven in [Goddess of Slide] as a result of Ellen needed to talk about it on the finish. She confided to me that she had been sexually abused on the age of 14 by the mission’s American household physician in Kobe. With missionary dad and mom hovering over her, the psychological burden she endured from that have could be a lifelong battle. One which in the end led to her consuming as an grownup searching for steering and administration in a male-dominated music business.
I consider her introduction to conflict, faith, guidelines, laws, and sexual abuse propelled Ellen right into a rebellious life in rock and blues.
When did Ellen McIlwaine change into excited about music, particularly the blues? Who had been her early influences? How did her household and lecturers at her spiritual school react to her immersion in and devoting her life to enjoying the “satan’s music?”
Her musical roots started with enjoying piano in Japan. She had classical music classes whereas being a part of her father’s church choir. Her breakthrough with Western music got here from listening to her father’s shortwave Armed Forces Radio, a feed from a station out of New Orleans that performed Fat Domino, Professor Longhair, and her main affect, the Emperor of Japan, Ray Charles himself.
Early on, Ray Charles’ music and voice enormously influenced her. This was her baptism to new music and her soul.
After graduating in 1963, the household moved to Atlanta [Georgia], the place she hung out as a university pupil. Within the early Sixties, civil unrest in America was on the rise. Music was altering, and so had been the roles of girls. So, when Ellen found the guitar and dropped out of a conservative school, she started to play at espresso homes and meet musicians who without end modified and impressed her. Blues musicians like Buddy Moss and Mississippi John Damage had been a big affect in growing her guitar enjoying. She credit Tina Turner and Gladys Knight for locating her voice.
Initially, her dad and mom and church weren’t too keen on Ellen’s new style in music at a time when the Vietnam Struggle was in full swing, as was the Civil Rights Motion. Drug use began to creep into American society, and Ellen’s targets centered far more on enjoying music than getting married to a preacher.
Her father was just a little extra supportive than her mom, though he was anxious concerning the leisure business, particularly when it got here to younger ladies making an attempt to interrupt into it. This American life-style, even for Ellen, was typically a tradition shock. She missed the spirituality and humanity of Japanese tradition, however the music was what modified her life for good. Ellen had an unbelievable ear for music. On her personal time, Ellen sang and performed boogie-woogie music in the highschool dorm the place she stayed.
Ellen McIlwaine was an vital face on the scene in Greenwich Village within the late Sixties and early ’70s. Who had been a number of the musicians she performed and socialized with throughout her time there, particularly throughout her lengthy residency on the Cafe Au Go Go?
With the assistance of folks singer Patrick Sky, Ellen moved to New York in 1966 to pursue her music dream. Nobody might consider what she was doing – aside from Jimi Hendrix. What the heck was a lady doing, enjoying and exploring the boundaries of a soundscape reserved for males? After enjoying solo gigs on the piano and guitar at The Gaslight, Ellen moved to the Cafe Au Go Go, opening up for Blues legends like Buddy Man, Junior Wells, Odetta, and folks legend Richie Havens.
Ellen’s life modified without end in September 1966 when John Hammond Jr. walked in with Jimi Hendrix on the Cafe Au Go Go. After watching Ellen play a set, Jimi requested if he might be part of her on stage, and he or she politely mentioned, “Oh, my God, YES!” Simply think about a white lady sharing the stage at Cafe Au Go Go for six nights with Hendrix, the best guitar participant ever! It created an actual buzz about her across the Village. This was her breakthrough, and what higher musician than Hendrix to point out her the final word respect?
Ellen performed to free herself and different feminine guitarists from the enterprise’s strictures and imposed musical limitations. She mentioned: “After I moved to New York, I mentioned I’m not going to be a secretary or do no matter. I’m not gonna marry a preacher like my dad and mom hoped. I simply wanna play music.”
I noticed an early screening of your Goddess of Slide at Upstate Movies near Woodstock, the place Ellen McIlwaine spent a number of years and remains to be fondly remembered. Inform us about her time there and her solely expertise not as a solo performer, and her time with the band Worry Itself in Woodstock.
In 1968, after a profitable run in Greenwich Village, she fashioned her first band, Worry Itself, which included Chris Zaloom, Invoice McCord, and Paul Album. Transferring to Woodstock was very important for her because the band carried out on the unique Woodstock Soundouts, the forerunner to Woodstock ’69. The small-town environment was a welcome change after experiencing the grind and competitors of New York Metropolis.
The individuals of Woodstock had been in the course of a musical shift that may without end change historical past. Worry Itself was integral to that scene, and Ellen’s distinctive expertise was within the foreground. Everybody adored her. She was a brand new feminine expertise with the distinctive magic mixture of slide guitar and gospel-like singing.
This profitable beginning propelled her band to dream huge and head again to New York and the Document Plant to work on their first self-titled debut album. The [1978] album was produced by the legendary Tom Wilson, who additionally produced Bob Dylan, the Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa & the Moms of Invention, Simon & Garfunkel, and Eric Burdon & the Animals.
Ellen McIlwaine’s status was cemented along with her two traditional albums recorded for Polydor within the early Nineteen Seventies [Honky Tonk Angle in 1972 and We the People in 1973], showcasing her highly effective voice and distinctive method to slip guitar. A spotlight of those had been her dwell performances included inside, particularly “We the Individuals”. Inform us about that and your selection to incorporate it because the Goddess of Slide‘s opening scene.
After I first found Ellen’s music in 2014 on The Guitar Album, “We the Individuals” was instrumental in piquing my curiosity. It was at New York’s Carnegie Corridor in 1973, whereas opening up for the funk band Mandrill at a live performance celebrating African American music, that Ellen McIlwaine made her breakthrough.
Right here, Ellen performed and recorded her signature protest music, “We the Individuals”. a composition devoted to the Lakota Bloodbath at Wounded Knee. This music elevated Ellen to cult standing as she demonstrated her highly effective solo guitar enjoying and Japanese-influenced skat singing. Each musician will inform you that enjoying dwell and sounding that explosive shouldn’t be straightforward. So, after I considered the movie’s opening, I knew I needed to disclose this extremely gifted girl whose guitar sound appeared like a mix of rock, blues, Indian sitar, and flamenco-style strumming.
Mix that with what Ellen described as Japanese skat singing, and you’ll witness one thing beforehand unseen. I felt it was important to ascertain an intro that even right now’s viewers could be astounded by. When my archival researcher, Terri Foxman, discovered footage of a efficiency of it on Canadian TV in 1976, I knew there was a purpose to incorporate this for the intro.
I additionally needed her friends and followers interviewed within the movie, like Taj Mahal and Ani DiFranco, to hearken to her efficiency of this music as I filmed their reactions and commentary. This launched an iconic music by an unbelievable expertise, one that may hopefully result in a brand new viewers via my movie.
Ellen McIlwaine was additionally acclaimed for her covers of tunes by Stevie Surprise and Jack Bruce, with whom she later obtained to report. Inform us a bit about this.
Ellen was acclaimed for her covers as a result of she all the time added one thing unique, leading to a signature efficiency of iconic songs like “Can’t Discover My Approach House” by Blind Religion, Stevie Surprise’s “Larger Floor”, and “Bizarre of Hermiston” by Jack Bruce. Ellen typically spoke concerning the honesty of those songs she recognized with, that means what she lived via on the time in her private life. Ellen felt she might add a female voice to the songs and create a singular and private guitar interpretation.
Certainly, her covers of those iconic songs established her vary and high quality as a gifted interpreter with a message. You may’t assist however fall in love along with her variations as a result of they seize your soul. Many artists like Jennifer Batten, Joanna Connor, and Amanda Marshall shared tales about listening to a few of these covers for the primary time once they began, referring to those songs each lyrically and musically as inspirations to kickstart their careers.
Fatboy Slim used Ellen’s guitar riff from her cowl of “Larger Floor” for his music “Tune for Lindy”, featured within the Hollywood film Mindless in 1998. This considerably tells you the affect her sound had, that 25 years after releasing her cowl, it will get sampled and turns into a giant a part of the music scene within the Nineteen Nineties.
Although it’s not dwelled upon in Goddess of Slide, do you consider Ellen McIlwaine’s profession suffered as a result of she didn’t play the casting sofa sport?
Ellen’s contribution to music historical past is plain in some ways. Her lengthy battle towards discrimination towards ladies singing and enjoying lead guitar took a toll on her personally and professionally.
Ellen was forward of her time. She helped form the voices of guitarists worldwide, elevating the facility and profile of feminine musicians in a male-dominated music business. When you’ve got a three-record deal on the peak of your musical profession and, all of a sudden, you might be requested to participate within the casting sofa sport or lose your proper to play guitar, piano and write songs, you might be confronted with a pivotal ethical second that may change your life without end.
Ellen mentioned NO THANK YOU, and consequently, the report business in America banned her from signing huge report offers without end. We’re speaking a couple of pure expertise, a trailblazing artist who might play guitar like no one’s enterprise and sing like an angel from heaven!
In 1987, Ellen McIlwaine moved to Canada and have become an establishment there. What had been the principle achievements of those years up North and the cult that grew round her in Australia?
A brand new chapter started in 1987 when she moved to Toronto and have become a Canadian citizen. Leaving the USA was a musical profession danger, however Canada was her sanctuary. There, she made new pals and immersed her soul into new music, together with reggae. In 1975, she recorded her first impartial album after Polydor Information in Montreal, The Actual Ellen McIlwaine.
Having studied French on the Canadian Worldwide Academy in Japan, she felt a deep connection to Canada. So, when she settled in Toronto, she grew to become a family identify instantly. Nobody had seen a lady play guitar like that or sing with such energy. Inside a 12 months, she launched her solely music video for her new single, “Save the World”, from her 1987 album Wanting For Bother.
Her tv concert events and interviews demonstrated Ellen’s rising recognition and the respect she was receiving in Canada. I imply, we’re speaking about an artist who, earlier in her profession, had individuals like Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, and Tom Waits opening up for her or as a part of a double invoice. At instances, she opened up for artists like Invoice Withers, Johnny Winter, and Taj Mahal.
Simply earlier than arriving in Toronto, Australia got here calling, the place she had a cult following that showcased her abilities at a number of the greatest venues in Sydney and Melbourne. Three younger ladies followers, one being Margret Roadknight, who had been a part of the scene in Greenwich Village within the Nineteen Seventies, began a tour administration firm, The Honky Tonk Angels, to e book her on a giant Australian tour.
Women and men, music venues, and radio stations immediately fell in love with Ellen. Her music captured Australians’ hearts a lot that she returned a few instances all through her profession. Her uncooked power exploded the crowds right into a frenzy.
Later in life, Ellen McIlwaine had to surrender music and work as a bus driver to make ends meet. What had been her ultimate years like?
After transferring to Calgary in 1992, she grew to become a daily at music festivals throughout Canada and some in the USA. In 1999, she launched a dwell album recorded in Germany, and in 2001, a brand new album, Spontaneous Combustion, that includes Taj Mahal on two songs: a reggae model of “Mockingbird” and “I Bid You Goodnight.” This spurred Ellen to hitch Taj Mahal on tour in Switzerland and Germany as his opening act.
After releasing her final album, Mystic Bridges, in 2006, it was clear that Ellen’s profession had taken a toll on her bodily and emotionally. In 2007, she was invited to be a part of Sue Foley’s Guitar Girls Tour, with Rachelle Van Zanten and Roxanne Potvin finishing the workforce.
After a lot success, Ellen pulled out of the tour, citing fatigue and melancholy. She began to decelerate, making far fewer appearances on stage, and, in 2009, took a job as a bus driver for a Calgary Lady’s Constitution Faculty. Often, she volunteered on the youngsters’s hospital in Calgary, typically within the most cancers ward, at instances singing and enjoying her guitar for younger sufferers.
To lots of her friends and pals, it was unhappy to listen to Ellen placing her profession apart to outlive financially. Legends like Odetta, Richie Haven, and Taj Mahal would all the time name upon her to hitch them on stage or open up in the event that they had been performing shut by. Ellen’s long-time pals knew who she was and what she meant to the music business.
Once we spoke about her job as a bus driver, it meant an incredible deal for her to attach with these younger ladies and maintain them. She had been adopted and by no means had siblings or cousins close by. These ladies had no thought of her musical previous. Oftentimes, the native radio host would name Ellen to advise her the day earlier than that he would play one in every of her songs on the radio for her birthday, October 1st, so she would dial up the station full blast and urge the ladies to sing alongside, by no means revealing she was the artist.
The women knew her as Ellen, the bus driver, till she handed away tragically. This humble and loving high quality was the actual Ellen, whom I spoke to and likewise fell in love with like so many others.
Your unique intention in making Goddess of Slide was to make use of the movie to revive her profession, a bit like Malik Bendjelloul’s Trying to find Sugarman [2012] did for Sixto Rodriguez. When Ellen McIlwaine was recognized with most cancers and handed six weeks after, how did this, and the shock package deal she despatched you, alter the challenge?
When she first known as me to inform me she had been recognized with most cancers and had 11 weeks to dwell, I used to be devastated. I used to be so saddened; I couldn’t think about the movie with out her. She had give up her bus-driving job, and we deliberate to inform her complete story, revive her musical profession, together with a return efficiency at Carnegie Corridor, and launch new music. She assured me that it was only a bump within the highway and that she might nonetheless sing and play guitar.
A few of my funders had been skeptical about persevering with the movie with out Ellen, with out her perspective being expressed. Sadly, 11 weeks became 4 weeks, and eventually, she handed away precisely 23 days after her telephone name.
After I acquired Ellen’s ashes by mail, I knew I wanted to proceed honoring her legacy and ending this movie. Together with her diaries and Ellen’s want to unfold a few of her ashes in places that meant probably the most to her, I knew I used to be chosen to share her story and make this movie about her.
What’s forward within the rapid future for you and Goddess of Slide? What does making a music documentary profitable soak up right now’s movie world?
In the meanwhile, I hope that movie festivals can be open-minded about screening a music documentary. It’s vital to share my movie about Ellen McIlwaine as a result of I consider her journey and her music can encourage a brand new era of musicians. I hope Goddess of Slide can appeal to a theatrical launch within the USA, Europe, and Asia and an important streaming deal outdoors of Canada to achieve the largest attainable viewers.
In right now’s movie world, music documentaries are slowly discovering a distinct segment in festivals and streaming platforms. Nevertheless, the battle stays on how an artist like Ellen McIlwaine, who didn’t attain the mountain prime she deserved, can in the end affect the movie market.
Trying to find Sugarman was an instance of an incredible story about an unknown folks singer who touched hundreds of thousands of individuals. Like my movie, these untold tales should all the time discover a platform to dwell by as a result of they’re actual tales of survival and justice in music that deserve consideration.
These days, broadcasters and funding companies have been searching for the presence of well-known artists within the ultimate product to make sure visibility. I hope we don’t neglect tales like Ellen McIlwaine’s, which mirror a number of the realities of gifted singers and musicians who fall via the cracks whereas leaving an plain affect on music.