Miss Blues is about as genuine as they come in the music world. The 74-year-old blues singer is warm, open, unabashedly honest, and will ask you a question about yourself just as willingly as she’ll answer one about her own life.

MISS BLUES & THE BLUE NOTES
WHEN: 8:30 p.m. Saturday, July 3
WHERE: Uncle Bo's, lower level, Ramada Hotel and Convention Center, 420 S.E. 6th
COVER: $7

And what a life it’s been. Miss Blues was born Dorothy Choncie Ellis on a Texas cotton plantation. She worked alongside her mother in the fields from a young age for meager wages. Her father was an abusive man who disappeared for months at a time, and her mother eventually moved herself and her daughter to another town to escape him. He found them anyway, and showed up at their house and threatened them with a knife. In an instance of seemingly superhuman strength, Dorothy’s mother seized the knife from her husband and broke it with her bare hands.

Dorothy learned to sing from her mother, who warbled quietly to pass the time in the cotton fields. She had a distinctive, powerful voice that belied her age, and soon was singing at a juke joint on the plantation, and later at an all-black hospital where her mother took a job in Paris, Texas. One day, a man came to record her singing and made a red vinyl record out of it.

Dorothy’s mother died while working at that hospital when her daughter was only eight. She set out on her own – traveling north to Oklahoma City to earn a living however she could. She started working at a beer garden when she was only 14 years old, where she often sang to the customers. She later became a full-time cook for a wealthy white family, until an experience with a visiting Washington D.C. socialite made up her mind to quit.

The woman loved Dorothy’s angel food cakes, and the family who employed her sent Dorothy to deliver one of her cakes to the penthouse suite where their friend was staying. The hotel elevator was for whites only, so Dorothy had no choice but to climb flight after flight of stairs with the cake. As she thought about the nature of the entire situation, something inside of her changed that day.

She kept performing at clubs around town – no gig was too small – and saved every penny she made. In 1954, she sang with a real band for the first time. They called themselves the Rockin' Aces and featured Little Eddie Taylor. Dorothy later paid her way into the Oscar Rose Junior College in Oklahoma City, and went on to earn a master's degree at the University of Central Oklahoma.

Decades later, her musical career is still blossoming. She has recorded several albums, performed around the world and earned many musical accolades, including a 2004 induction into the Oklahoma Blues Hall of Fame, and also found the time to pen a southern cookbook. She still maintains an active touring schedule, and shows no signs of slowing down.

Miss Blues caught up with Splash! via telephone from her Oklahoma City home. Her plans for the day included searching for the perfect spring watermelon to share with a group of friends, but she generously took a lengthy time-out to discuss her life, her music and the unlikely road she traveled to establish a successful musical career. Excerpts from that conversation are below.

You grew up working on a cotton plantation in Texas, you had an abusive father and were orphaned at a young age. And yet, you’ve accomplished so much in your life – writing, recording, performing, earning a master’s degree. From where did you draw that strength?

You know really, the last story they did about me nearly brought tears to my eyes, because you know, when you’re going through stuff like that you never realize that it’s that tough until you get older and look back over it. I don’t know where I drew the strength. I guess because I was a blues singer.

How has overcoming all of that adversity affected you as an artists?

Well, it made me develop a passion for the blues and the lyrics and my interpretation.

Your signature singing style has been described by critics as the Texas Shout. Can you break that down for me?

Mainly what it is – it’s just like a preacher on a Sunday morning. It’s got the hoops and the hollers, too – just like a Baptist preacher.

It was that strong voice that earned you the nickname Little Miss Blues when you were only a little girl. You performed the song “Good Mornin’ Blues” on Easter Sunday 1943, and you received $2.50 for your performance. And you’ve still got that voice today?

Right. I’ll be 75 in September, and the Lord still… my voice has not broke yet. Not yet.

How long have you been performing and touring? Do you ever get tired of it or think about retiring?

No, no. No, no, no, no. I’ve been singing now for 67 years professionally, getting paid for it. No, I’m not thinking about retiring. If I would retire, what am I going to do – sit in this house? I’m not going to retire at all. When I shut my eyes and close in, then cremate me and throw me in a juke joint somewhere.

You seem to take your professional duties as a performer very seriously – the way you present yourself, the way you address an audience. Where do these values come from?

When people pay money to see you, you should look professional. It bugs me to no end to see these so-called blues singers up there with tore-up blue jeans on and all that stuff like that. Uh-uh. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. You’re supposed to look the part. You can put on something at least so when they go home they didn’t see someone that looks like they’ve been out plowing all day. That’s the way I feel.

You began working as a cook when you were very young to get by on your own. Why did you eventually pursue music instead?

When I was a kid coming up, that’s what I did – I was a cook for the movers and the shakers back in the early 40s and the 50s. I’m sure you read the story of what made me quit cooking. You know who that was, don’t you?

No, I don’t.

(Names a well-know society woman visiting Texas at the time, who she asked not to be identified.) I know that woman’s name just as good as I know my own. That’s who that was. She was famous in Washington D.C. She loved my angel food cakes. And do you know, I have not had a piece of angel food cake since.

You went on to write a cookbook, though, titled Hoecakes and Collard Greens: Sage Concoctions and Doin’s. Are there any similarities between cooking and making music?

I think they’re both about the same. You either have a passion for cooking or a passion for singing. I have a passion for both of them. I love cooking. I don’t do too much of it now, but years ago, a lot of the old musicians used to come here and eat – people like Bo Diddley have been to my house, and Richard “Groove” Holmes – he’s been here. A lot of people have been here through the years and had food. Richard “Groove” Holmes’ favorite thing for me to cook for him was spaghetti. He’s dead now, but he loved my spaghetti.

These days, from what do you draw your musical inspiration?

Here lately, I’ve been looking at what surrounds me, and what’s around me has developed into a song called “Billie’s Blues” – who is my dear friend, and it’s her relationship I wrote about. Then I wrote one called “Margree’s Blues,” and that’s about one of my girlfriends and her relationship with her husband. We sit out there and we talk about these things, so I just put it to song. And they’re all dead now, except Margree’s not dead, but Billie’s dead. She did get a chance to hear the song before she died. “Margree’s Blues” sings, “You’ve got one hand on my body/ and the other one on my pocket book.” And these are real people, and that’s the way that all of my songs are real. Those are true stories – every one of them. I don’t have a story that’s not true. The only thing that’s been embellished is one verse of “Sinking” – when I said the state came and took the children, which, there was no children involved in this relationship. But that one’s about my Daddy and this 28-year-old woman that he married. I guess you could say that I draw things from what’s around me – true things that are around me. And I think that’s the best kind, ‘cuz then you can feel those things.

What can Topekans expect when you perform July 3 at Uncle Bo’s?

I’m going to bring you something that a lot of times you do not get the chance to hear – I’m bringing you an evening chock full of traditional blues. I’m a traditional blues singer. You know, I do rock ‘n’ roll, I do all kinds of songs – I can sing anything now, and every so often I will throw in a little something, but I am a traditional blues singer. So the blues purists and all those kinds of people can expect to sit back and relax and hear a woman singing a little Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Johnson, T-Bone Walker and all of those things. Those are the songs I sing. I don’t sing too many female songs.

I’ve got some friends coming in from California for that performance. I don’t know what it is about me and Topeka, but these people be driving in and flying in. So I’d better have a good performance – I can’t have people flying in from all over the United States and do a bad performance. (Lets out a long, hearty laugh.) It’s going to be quite an evening, I tell you.

NORMAN — Dorothy Ellis, known as "Miss Blues,” will perform at 7:30 p.m. Sunday in Andrews Park, 201 W Daws St.  Ellis will sing in her trademark "blues-with-an-attitude” style for the free, outdoor show, which is part of the Performing Arts Studio’s Summer Breeze concert series. The concert will be in the park’s amphitheater. People are encouraged to bring picnic baskets and lawn chairs.  Ellis is known by audiences for her emotional performances. Summer Breeze Chairman Steven White called her a "legendary blues performer.” "She has won recognition from her peers and fans around the world for the solid manner in which she shares life lessons through singing the blues,” he said.  A Texas native, Ellis began her career in 1943 at age 7, and she was quickly labeled "Little Miss Blues.”  She was later part of the Rocking Aces Band, which opened for Bo Diddley and Jackie Wilson. She’s shared the stage with many other blues singers throughout her career.  Ellis was inducted into the Oklahoma Blues Hall of Fame in 2004. She released her latest CD, "Bad Prospects,” in 2008.

Ellis, known as “Miss Blues,” will take the stage at 7:30 p.m. in the park’s amphitheater, located at 201 W. Daws St. Concertgoers are encouraged to bring lawn chairs and picnic baskets to enjoy the free outdoor show.  Devoted to bringing to gutsy down-home blues experience to her audiences, Miss Blues is known for her singing with a passion that reclaims the emotion for all women who have been in the grip of heartache.  "We are very fortunate to have a legendary blues performer like Miss Blues playing in Norman at Summer Breeze,” said Summer Breeze chairman Steven White. “She has won recognition from her peers and fans around the world for the solid manner in which shares life lessons through singing the blues. This will be a great night of hearing the blues on a Sunday night in the park with family and friends."

A native of Direct, Texas, Miss Blues began her singing career in 1943 at age 7. After singing "Good Mornin' Blues," she was billed as Little Miss Blues.  By the late 1940s, she was belting the blues in her cousin's beer garden in Oklahoma City. A decade later, Miss Blues teamed with guitarist Little Eddie Taylor and formed the Rocking Aces Band. The band opened for such rock n’ roll and blues legends as Bo Diddley and Jackie Wilson. She also has shared the stage with Taj Mahal, Kenny Neal, Koko Taylor and Watermelon Slim, Little Joe Blue, Drink Small, and Richard "Groove" Holmes.  Miss Blues was inducted into the Oklahoma Blues Hall of Fame in 2004. Her most recent CD, Bad Prospects, was released in 2008. Others include Miss Blues Sittin’ In with Blinddog Smokin’ (2001), Reminiscence of the Blues (2004), and On the Front Porch (2005).

Her band (The Blue Notes) also includes Ron Harmon, keyboards; Robb Hibbard, guitar; Gates “Gator” Miskovsky, bass guitar; and Michael Hardwick, drums.

Bad Prospects, the latest CD by Dorothy “Miss Blues” Ellis is NOT one you’ll be wanting to put on as the soundtrack to a romantic Valentine’s Day with your Sweetie. Unless of course, your “Sweetie” turned out to be a no-good, lying, two timing monster who took all your money and your best friend, and ran over your trust as they sped away in the car you bought them. If THAT’S how you’re spending your Valentine’s Day - alone with a box of chocolates and a fifth of whiskey, thinking of the horrible, painful ways karma might catch up with your “Sweetie” – well, in that case Bad Prospects would make a perfect musical accompaniment to your day.

There are no love songs here. And no pity songs either. Ellis doesn’t write any whining “He’s left me, I think I might die” kind of wussy lyrics. No, not Miss Blues. The songs are more in line with the track “Trapped”: after 50 years together, her man tells her she’s “getting fat and she moves too slow”. Putting up with his verbal abuse has turned her love to hate. So, after considering her fate, she tells that man “I’m gonna fix myself up. I’m gonna buy me a car, I’m going out cruising down at the Blue Note Bar…I’m gonna find me a damned good man if he’s dumb, cripple or blind”. And takes back control of her life in the process. There is strength and determination in this and all of her lyrics. Even when she’s telling us how bad it is, you know she’ll find her way. We all get the blues. The difference is, Miss Blues doesn’t let them stop her.

Ellis penned seven of the nine tunes on the disc. Most deal with love gone tragically wrong. The other two are “It’s Gonna Rain,” by bassist Don Skinner (also sharing vocal duties with Dorothy on the tune) and the instrumental “Midnight City,” written by guitarist Chris Henson. There is one other instrumental on the CD, “Rub Board Boogie”. Her hearty laugh and Miss Blues percussive washboard playing drive the rollicking tune.

What Dorothy’s voice may lack in range, it makes up in abundance with depth and emotion. There is never a moment of doubt that she means what she’s singing – the raw emotions forged from a lifetime of bad luck and lessons learned the hard way. What optimism shines peaks through, supported by her backbone of steel, is tempered by a heavy sigh of life’s realities.

Miss Blues ain’t no fool. She’s not about to smile sweetly and say everything’s all right when she can see the Bad Prospects all around. But they’re not taking her down without a fight. And my money’s on Miss Blues for the knock out win.

- Blue Lisa, Southwest Blues CD Review - February 2009

Imagine discovering Muddy Waters. Actually, at some point, we all did. That is how I feel about being introduced to Dorothy Ellis, known as “Miss Blues.” She is currently well known regionally in Oklahoma as a singer, songwriter, and author, but right from the first listen to her third CD, it is clear that here is an artist with depth and special talent. The first time you heard Muddy Waters, didn’t you just feel it and know it? Same here!

The album liner notes provide no bio information, but her websites reveal that Miss Blues had been performing for around 60 years before she released her first recording. Liner notes are also usually full of hyperbole to be taken with a grain of salt. Not this time, take this as the gospel truth: “Miss Blues is a traditional blues artist you must get to know.” For purists, here is a gold mine of a find! By the way, she was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 2004.The liner notes continue, “She is rapidly becoming known by blues [fans] the world over, and for good reason. She is the real deal all the way to the bottom of her soul. Her vocals are spellbinding, and with her heart-wrenching delivery of each song, she paints a tapestry that takes the listener on a journey through the pain and suffering that has been the first-hand story of her life.” From a Carl Gustafson interview, Ellis is quoted, “I developed a primal scream crying out for, and to, all my sisters, who sometimes suffer in silence with no-good men folk….”The album, with nine songs of which seven are written by Miss Blues, is further made a winning standout release by her crack band, The Blue Notes. Robb Hibbard deftly plays most lead guitar, Chris Henson plays some rhythm guitar and lead on the great, jazzy instrumental track he wrote, “Midnight Cry.” Don Skinner co-produced, wrote and sings “It’s Gonna Rain,” and plays bass on all tracks. Joe Skinner is the other co-producer who also drums on several cuts, trading off with Mike Hardwick. Mark Lyon – rhythm guitar, Ron Harmon along with T.Z. Wright - keyboards, Robert Riggs - harmonica, Frank Zona – Saxophone, and Jim Johnson – rhythm guitar on one track – round out the studio crew.

“Blood Running Cold” opens the set with an instantly likeable full band sound. Then, the voice seals the deal! “...she gives you something you actually need, an honest voice in a distorted world.... expressing the pain and feeling of those who suffered,” writes Gustafson. In this song about a relationship going wrong, you realize, visualize and actualize that this woman has lived the blues.

“Billie’s Blues” comes next, a slow, moody blues with Robb Hibbard showcasing his fret board talents. Similarly, track three, the title track, is a slow number about poverty and struggle.

“Rub Board Boogie” with Miss Blues as a rub board expert has Joe Skinner on the accompanying organ instrumental. Too bad it is only one minute and forty nine seconds long.

Love turns to hate in another Ellis original “Trapped (in a bad situation).” This may be the best cut, but it is really hard to like one more than the others – that is how good this CD is!

“Bad Prospects” is a title that reflects the mood of the lyrics, but “Abnormally Great Prospects” would be the apropos phrase for chances of finding a real, deep-blues CD! Simply, do not miss this one!

- James "Skyy Dobro" Walker, WGLT Internet Blues Radio
Reviewer James “Skyy Dobro” Walker is a noted Blues writer, DJ and Blues Blast contributor. His weekly radio show “Friends of the Blues” can be heard each Thursday from 4:30 – 6:00pm on WKCC 91.1 FM in Kankakee, IL

I’m a huge fan of Dorothy Ellis – aka Miss Blues – songwriter, singer and author, and this album, Bad Prospects, is, to my mind, her best yet. Miss Blues had been gigging for somewhere in the region of 60 years before she released her first recording, and it’s just a pity that she waited so long – why didn’t she start recording 40 or 50 years ago??

This latest CD, Bad Prospects, comprises nine tracks in total, seven of which are written by Miss Blues – one of the others is written by Chris Henson, who plays guitar on the track, and the other by Don Skinner, who contributes the bass playing and some of the vocals. Henson and Skinner also appear on most of the other tracks on guitar and bass. All of the musicians featured here are top class. As well as Henson and Skinner the others are worthy of mention too – Rob Hibbard, Mark Lyon, Ron Harmon, Joe Skinner, Mike Hardwick, T.Z. Wright, Robert Riggs, Frank Zona and Jim Johnson.

The album opens with the Miss Blues original, “Blood Running Cold,” a song about a relationship going wrong (as in most of the best blues songs down through the years) – the song is full of expression and emotion, and if you didn’t know before, then you know now that this woman has lived the blues. “Billie’s Blues” follows up --- a slow, moody, atmospheric, number so representative of this woman’s talents.

Track three is the title track of the album, a number about poverty and the struggle to stay afloat in life, and then the tempo picks up with track four, “Rub Board Boogie” – and I have to say that Miss Blues is a rub board maestro! Joe Skinner comes to the fore on the organ here and I really wish that the track was far longer than it’s one minute and forty nine seconds.

“Trapped” is the fifth Dorothy Ellis penned track – and it’s at least as good as the previous four, if not better. This is the blues at it’s best – not reliant on cover versions, but using the familiar themes of love and relationships as people have done since the blues started.

The only instrumental comes up next, “Midnight City”, written by Chris Henson – smoky, jazzy, bluesy and good. Saxophone from Frank Zona adds to the flavour of the piano and organ supplied by T.Z.Wright and Chris Henson’s guitar above the rhythm section of Don and Joe Skinner.

Miss Blues resurrects a couple of numbers from earlier CDs – “Sinking, Sinking, Sinking” and “Cold Mountains,” and gives both of them a slightly different feel, and Don Skinner adds “It’s Gonna Rain” where he and Dorothy share the vocals to very good effect – this track has a compulsive driving beat to it, with Ron Harmon on the organ and Chris Henson laying down some more good guitar.

Bad Prospects is one CD that every lover of the blues should have a listen to.

--- Terry Clear, Blues Bytes

Can a person be honest and dishonest at the same time? I know a lot of people like that. This paradox is especially easy to discover among musicians. When I owned a club I used to give bands an 'honesty' test. I would slip in an extra ten or twenty bucks into the wad of cash I paid them at the end of the night, and asked them to count it to see it was the agreed upon amount. I'd purposely turn away so they could count out of my vision. Sometimes the counter would point out the error and some would smile and lie, 'Yep, exactly right.'

Guess what? Sometimes I'd hire back the liars because they were honest and wouldn't hire back those who told the truth because they were dishonest. You read it correctly.

Sonny Boy Williamson II is a case in point. He was known to lie outrageously. He even took another man's name and identity. His biographers suggest that his string of false names and birth dates helped him evade police from a variety of charges that may have included murder. Had I overpaid Sonny Boy I have little doubt that he'd have smiled his toothless grin at me and lied his ass off. I consider him one of the most honest musicians to whom I've listened.

Pat Boone on the other hand, was so seemingly honest that he refused to kiss a girl in the Movie April Love because he was being honest to God and his future wife. He would have undoubtedly pointed out my overpayment error to him, yet whole movies have been made about how his music was the epitome of contrivance.

The purest honesty test I know is the human voice in song as evaluated through the human ear by people who value integrity above technology and gimmickry. The voice needn't be the strongest or the prettiest, because honesty trumps those qualities every time. A voice that can connect you emotionally with truth evokes inside the listener feelings of passion and not without compassion, feelings of lust but not without love, feelings of fear, but not without courage. Such a voice reveals the pith and power in a person's soul and tells us who they are beyond the clothes, the flesh, the words and the masks. Such a voice often tells us who we are as well. Dorothy Ellis has such a voice.

There aren't any paparazzi following Miss Blues around. That's because nowadays our culture would rather pander to youth who have the appetites of Satyrs and the attention spans of fleas. Shuffling along in a print dress and a bonnet, Miss Blues wouldn't even make a good graphic display against the virtual reality in computerville, let alone the glitz, smoke, explosions and undulating choreography of a youth concert.

Miss Blues isn't eye candy like the pop divas; she's more like eye spinach, and in no small portion. She contains iron and is good for you. At the end of the day you won't feel cloyed and ready to puke as with Candy, because she gives you something you actually need, an honest voice in a distorted world – and unfortunately, that is a rare event.

I have a theory that entertainers who come across as contrived, superficial, or find the need to explain themselves all the time, were originally motivated into music for the wrong reasons, usually because they saw someone they wanted to be like, especially when they noticed the attention he or she was getting. For example, I don't ever want to see or hear one more singer put on a sun bonnet and belt out, "Lord wontcha buy me a Mercedes Benz..."

Honest singers find their voice early and alone, like little Dorothy Ellis, then known as 'Rabbit' because she was scared as a jackrabbit, and had reason to be. She watched her momma suffer in silence from an abusive man and marveled that she never complained. She worked on a cotton plantation in Texas in those days and saw other woman abused by their men just like her mother. Everyone picked cotton and little Rabbit would pick all day for less than a dollar in the hot sun. She would listen to her mother sing quietly and knew she was salving some inner wound by doing it. Rabbit sang too, only she felt the urge at that young age to cry out for her mother and lift up her voice until she could cry out for all the women she saw about her picking cotton by day, being belittled and abused day and night.

Such passion and power in a child didn't go unnoticed and a man named Earl Shambolee, who ran a little barrel house on the plantation, asked her to sing for everybody on Easter Sunday 1943, and told her he'd pay her $2.50 which was near a week's wages. Little Rabbit looked like her daddy and was big and grown beyond her seven years of age. There was an old fiddler named McCoy and a sometimes guitarist named Credelle who provided the music and accompanied Rabbit while she sang "Good Mornin' Blues" and was thereafter billed as Little Miss Blues.

She sang Friday and Saturday at the Juke Joint on the Plantation sometimes making only a dollar, sometimes two or three times that much, but from the beginning exhibiting the straight forward primal scream that became her Texas Shout Style trademark and method of letting the world hear the pain of injustice in the human voice. She writes, "I cried out for my mom and all the women these no good men folk abused. Really wanted females to know they are not suffering alone."

Suffering is something Miss Blues observed and felt from first memory for her mother was a nurse in the hospital for blacks in Paris, Texas. Although she picked cotton by day, little Miss Blues lived in the hospital among the sounds of the sick and dying. She could hear her mother sing her quiet songs as she made her rounds and saw the comfort it brought. One day a white man came around having heard about the singing nurse and stuck a microphone out and unceremoniously recorded her singing "Driftin' Blues" and he made a red vinyl record of it. Shortly thereafter, at the age of 31, the heat in the hospital became so unbearable on a summer day that Dorothy's momma collapsed and died of heat stroke.

Little Miss Blues became an orphan. Her daddy had long since fled the coop and was a mess sergeant and drifting man. Somewhere along the line in his infrequent visits he had taught his little girl to cook and it kindled a flame in her which never went out. But the new orphan was alone at eight years old and had no family and having lived in a hospital, had no friends.

She got by gleaning scrap bolls of cotton near Wellington, Texas. She went to live with her mother's mother who despised her for looking like her father who was a no-account cotton picker and drifter and not a landowner like her people had been. As a result she was so mean to Little Miss Blues that the poor girl left and herself became a drifter between the ages of eight and fourteen, sometimes staying with a cousin or some other relative, and often alone, getting by on looking older than her age.

At 14 she took all her money and got on a bus and told the driver to take her as far north as the money would cover in miles. He dropped her off in Oklahoma City, alone and broke. She was taken in by the Brockaway Home for Girls. She needed a job to pay her meager rent and found a cousin who owned a beer garden and gave her a job.

As I listened in my interview to the graveled old voice relaying information to me as though these kinds of events happen to everyone, I developed a deep curiosity about what events were not being told, about what abusive men she must have met at this time and the indifference she encountered in a society that cared very little about who was relegated to the streets and why. How often was she afraid and how many dark alleys did she wander down searching for valuables singing to herself to ease her anxiety? I'm guessing these details were not told me because they seemed uneventful to her in the context of a life adrift where no promises are made and no expectations tantalize the young mind.

Of course she never quit singing. At the beer garden where she collected quarters for drinks, she sang to the customers accompanied by an acoustic guitar picker. But she hung on to some of the wages and tips and at 15 years old moved into a duplex on her own. The lady in the other duplex was a mother who one day used all the money for her rent, her bills and her kids, and bought some drugs. It impacted young Dorothy and she wrote it into a song which was later recorded, spent it all on one cheap thrill…

Once again, Little Miss Blues was expressing the pain and feeling of those who suffered, and having never seen or experienced anything different, it didn't occur to her to punch a word or emphasize a note, or wink at a turn of phrase, she just emoted from the gut what she felt in her heart and her songs lived and breathed the same air she did.

Still a middle teen, young Dorothy found an outlet for the other of her great passions, the first being singing, and the second cooking. She moved into the servants quarters above a garage in the house of rich white folks and became their cook. It was a move that would change her life around, not because of the opportunity, but rather the humiliation.

She was to make an angel food cake and take it to a high society lady from Washington DC, who lived in the Penthouse at the Skirvin Hotel. The lady was known nationally as the "Hostess with the Mostess."

As Miss Blues stepped off the bus in the cold air with the delicate and heavy cake, she was told that she couldn't ride the elevator for white people and would have to take the servants entrance. Heading to the alley elevator with the sound of the bus chugging into the distance, Dorothy thought of the two Cadillacs sitting idly in the garage of her employer and the whole scene struck Dorothy and wound a spring of motivation in her as she measured the great gap that existed between the educated and the ignorant.

She saved her money with great discipline and took after-hours jobs in juke joints. Singing mostly to black folks, but sometimes to white folks too. Again, I pause to wonder at the courage and strength of presence this young black girl must have exhibited to survive year after year among drunks and brutes, among thieves, drug addicts, and the vermin of lowlife Oklahoma City. Yet it is seldom hinted at by her as anything other than life itself. Where it comes out is in the raw angst of her powerful diaphragm-pushed vocals that can scourge us in blunt trauma. If you haven't witnessed the bulging neck veins or closed your eyes and felt the force of her, then gird your loins and go catch this old woman who has never sung a dishonest note in her life.

In 1954 she finally got to sing with a real band and they called themselves the Rockin' Aces and featured Little Eddie Taylor, where D.C. Minner, who eventually ended up in the Oklahoma Blues and Jazz halls of fame, learned to play the bass. They played a variety of dives and corn whiskey joints, but finally ended up in Oklahoma City's Deep Deuce club and young Dorothy thought she had it made. [Miss Blues was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 2004.]

To make money these old musicians would play any kind of gig. Miss Blues sang early Rock 'n Roll songs which were called 'shuffles' back then, and Country and Western, and remembers bellowing out "I'm walkin' the floor over you, I can't sleep a wink it is true…

I hear musicians complain nowadays at how tough life is for them and it is: late nights, bad food, long miles, cheap women and booze, lots of temptation, no security, unhealthy atmosphere, brawls, adultery, not getting paid and more besides. To imagine a young orphan girl in this night scene somehow staying sober, sane; then working all day, saving her money, enrolling in school at her own expense, and ending up with a degree is admirable beyond handing out an award or a pat on the back. It should make the rest of us thank the Lord and count our blessings.

Dorothy Ellis paid her own way into the Oscar Rose Junior College in Oklahoma City and said it was the proudest day of her life and the realization of her dream. She later earned a master's degree at the University of Central Oklahoma, but whatever she learned in that school had no effect on a voice born in a cotton patch, honed by hard men and the cries of her mother, deepened by the pall of a wretched hospital where she and her mother sung their songs to salve the suffering, and textured layer after layer through desperate years of fear, loneliness and the omnipresent struggle of the lowlife.

It is that honest primal scream that defines our Miss Blues because it reassures us that no matter how life turns against us, we are understood and not suffering alone.

I remember one time at the Grand Targhee ski area near Jackson Hole in the midst of a bad winter and the deepest snow, I was to escort Dorothy to the lodge. The walkway was not only under snow, it was drifted high by wind, in some places higher than the lodge windows. She had a hundred yards of this to cover and insisted on wearing a dress and heels and her nice hat. We stumbled through the snow together with me deeply under her arms and literally staggering with her weight tiptoeing on the great drifts in her damned pointy shoes.

I pleaded with her to put on a winter outfit and let me pull her on a sled. She scolded me like a stepchild and announced that "a blues man shows respect for his audience by dressing up the way he should…" I'm guessing she was quoting someone, maybe Muddy Waters, but after a very ungraceful and ungainly march I sat her down in the lodge before a gathering of rich skiers in flamboyant red and yellow outfits, ski boots, and stocking caps, like a Barbie and Ken convention. The very white and aloof audience stared at her as though they had come upon the boogieman they'd been told about as kids. Silence.

She said gruffly, "Hit it." The cool thing about an honest voice is that it can convey its value on the first note and it doesn't matter who's listening. Human beings are innately aware when they come upon the real thing. There's a Western movie where a guy who has never seen a real wild Indian warrior asks a veteran how he'll know one if he sees one. 'Don't worry,' says the Vet. 'You'll just know.'

I've seen it a hundred times with Dorothy Ellis. Whether it be Wyoming Cowboys, or Nebraska farmers, kids, teens or rich Barbie and Ken skiers, they just know. Now you understand why.

- Carl Gustafson for Southwest Blues Magazine, Cover Story October 2007