An insurgent country singer/songwriter in the vein of
Guy Clark or
Townes Van Zandt, Tampa native
Ronny Elliott had been a working musician for over 30 years before he released his solo debut.
Elliott's wandering muse swings from acerbic fare like "South by So What?" (from 1999's
Ronny Elliott), which slams the revered music industry fête, to politically charged tracks like "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" (from 2001's
Poisonville) to a rumination on
Sid Vicious and
Nancy Spungen's co-dependent self-destruction ("Room 100").
Elliott lived with his mother and grandmother in Birmingham, Alabama until age six, when they moved to Tampa. By the early '70s Ronny had been a member of the groups Soul Trippers, Noah's Ark, Your Local Bear, and Duckbutter, to name a few, and even had a stint with big-time Southern rockers the Outlaws. Your Local Bear opened for Jimi Hendrix in 1967, while Duckbutter served as backing band for Chuck Berry and Gene Vincent on a retro tour. (Which is to say that Elliott had been well around the block long before the launch of his solo career.)
It wasn't until 1995 that he decided to step out on his own, gathering a group of Tampa musicians and self-recording
Ronny Elliott & the Nationals, a lo-fi effort that garnered critical acclaim.
A Postcard from Jack followed in 1998 and
Ronny Elliott in 1999, while 2001 saw the release of the aforementioned
Poisonville.
Elliott has continued his recording output throughout the 2000s, with such albums as
Magneto (2002),
Valentine Roadkill (2005), and
Jalopypaint (2007), all on the Blue Heart label.
