Tawny Ellis  is a lot of things and that is the most understated statement you will ever hear anyone make. She is an accomplished actress, she is an excellent singer, songwriter and musician, she has fashioned jewelry, she is a critically acclaimed sculptor with her art appearing in galleries in numerous countries, she is a painter and that is her art on the front cover of her current album Edge Of The World.  She also works with her husband Gio Loria as the vice-president of his company Black Volt Amplification, which acts both as a luthier and builds amplifiers.  a We will stop there, because if we continue listing her other talents and accomplishments you may be in for an even longer read than you anticipated in this the first part of a two-part interview.

It has been five years since Tawny Ellis released her last album and there can be many reasons why, especially with someone this busy.

She opens up, “Honestly, I think I got really gun shy. Something shut down on me, because I had worked on that album for quite some time. I released it in 2020 and I had signed up to go on tour in Europe and open for a really great artist over there. They shut down the whole world (due to the COVID pandemic). The day that I was supposed to get on the plane to go to the U.K.  to hook up and go on the tour and to play all of these shows they shut everything down and nobody could go anywhere. I felt like I had just flown a plane into the mountainside. It was horrible. We had packed everything and promoted and all the gigs were laid out. I am a really sensitive person and it was so hard.

You can’t really re-release an album and I got really disenchanted with the world at large. When I went to write I felt like I had so much to say, but I couldn’t figure out how to say anything. I couldn’t really relate to humanity. I felt like they were at each other’s throats in so many ways. Everybody was turning on each other. I (became) really disillusioned and so I started writing some things three years ago and I couldn’t really catch fire with finding my voice. I did not want to not write about things that were important and pivotal, but I didn’t want to be brow beating or anything. I had to find a magical way to bring people together. I felt like the world was so divided and I still think it is in a lot of ways.

My Canadian friend Daniel Lanois (celebrated musician, composer, producer) who is my neighbor, (with whom) I have become very good friends over the last fifteen or so years would always invite me to hear what he was working on. His work ethic and everything he works on is really impressive. I found what I wanted to write about and they were things that would make people sing along with me. I wanted the right music that would bring people together.

I went up to his house and he played some music for me and that is always very mind blowing and amazing. He is such an amazing artist. I came home, picked up my guitar and I started writing “La La La Love.” I was in such a state of frozen artistry that I decided I was going to write the silliest song I (could) come up with. Stuff that I had warded off my whole life. I was never going to have a song that is La La La or all trite stuff. This song came out and you might think it is lighthearted, but the verses are very intense, “It’s been a hard couple of years / Just tryin’ to stand up straight, don’t fall under this veil of fears…” It is something that everybody can relate to. It talks about “…I think I know the way / Don’t fall too far from love, oh love”  It turned out so beautiful.

That song led to another song and another song and another song. I picked up this new instrument that Daniel suggested and my husband brought it home to me. This is a dulcimer (she shows me). I started messing around on the dulcimer and a couple of more songs (the conversation changes direction) and sometimes I think there are songs inside of the instruments.

There is a very particular sound about (the dulcimer). One of my favorite artists in the world is Joni Mitchell. She played the dulcimer on a few of my favorite songs.

Daniel had one and he showed me how to play it.”

Explaining that the dulcimer is played holding the instrument on your lap, she continues, “I play lap steel as well.] I’m kind of good with those types of instruments when I can see the strings and sit down and do it. It is a very meditative instrument.

My husband works with guitars, makes guitars and deals in guitars and gear and all that stuff. (He is a luthier). He owns a company called Black Volt Amplification, which I help him with quite a bit. He is always wheeling, dealing and selling things and I was looking for a mountain dulcimer. He was out at one of these vintage stores and Gio picked it up and the owner said you can just take that. Gio brought it home to me. There are three songs that are on the album that I wrote on the dulcimer.

I think combined with finding a little bit of inspiration and sitting down with this instrument it started to break me open again, to find a way and to find a voice. We started working on this (album) three years ago. I had worked with many, many people over the years, but when I first started making records, the first records I ever did were with my husband Gio. We have been playing music since the day we met. He is so busy with his company, well we are, because I help him a lot, so we really only had the weekends. I would write all of these songs to record, but when you have a burgeoning business, you are exhausted on the weekends. I would say we would record Saturday and Sunday all day long (her arms are pumping like a runner). It never turned out like that. I pulled us over the finish line getting this done.

I will tell you what. Since we delivered it and got it done, we are like oh my god to have a free weekend. It is absolutely crazy. We don’t even know what that is like. We worked seven days a week, constantly, for those three years. It has been nice. I am starting to do my live shows in August and September I am enjoying this new chapter that we are in. I love playing live.”

To understand the autobiographical second song on the album “Sweet Georgia,” we need to take you back to Tawny Ellis’ childhood.

“I was born in Savanah Georgia. My dad was in the air force. I don’t know exactly when we left, but I was under three years old,” and citing her creative childhood years she continues, “I have sculptures that I made in elementary school, of dogs, cats and owls. When all the other kids were using molds, I was free forming it. I see things in three dimensions and sculpting makes total sense to me. It is easier than painting for me. I am a painter too. My album cover (for Edge Of The World), I painted that. I saw it in my mind, so I thought I have to paint that.

It is an incredibly personal song. It is pretty autobiographical in the things I chose to talk about. It is stuff that I am still dealing with on emotional levels. It is kind of a spooky thing, because I remember my mom who passed away about six years ago, she would tell me that when I was a little baby she was overwhelmed and at that time had a toddler, my brother. We lived in Savanah Georgia and there was a big willow tree in the backyard and as a newborn she would leave me there for hours. [unattended]. She said, oh I could see you from the kitchen sink (she makes a motion with one hand as if to say don’t worry about it) out the window.

So, the story has haunted me my entire life and I never really confronted her with that, but I felt abandoned by my family throughout my life. I had a little bit of a rough go coming up. There were a lot of things that happened that were tough for me to handle. That story always haunted me. I remember when we left Savanah to go wherever we were going; I have this memory of a super-duper long road out of Savanah. I have those memories of being in the car and thinking this is the longest road. We have been on this road forever and ever and ever. I had that imagery inside of me.

I also think that when you meet somebody it is a funny thing. Everybody wants to tell their little story. I have told this story one hundred thousand times [hmm that many Tawny?] once again I was born in Savanah Georgia dah dah dah, so I thought why don’t I just put it in a song and I talked about how far I have come, because I was literally left, probably in a basinet or something under a tree. The craziest thing is after my mother died and I put that single out months ago my mom’s sister, my aunt Jane wrote to me. She said oh my god, I remember (your mother) writing to me and telling me that is how she took care of you. She thought you could entertain yourself and you were mesmerized by the tree. I am sure during those hours of me taking care of myself I engaged with the tree. I love trees. I love nature. I love being alone. She sent me an envelope with me under the fucking tree. It was mind blowing. It was like are you kidding me? There I am under the tree. It was a black and white photo of me in the basinet under the tree. I could not believe it, because I had just heard the story.

Those were my beginnings. I think they wanted a boy. I think they were hoping for another boy and when I came out, they didn’t quite know what to do with me. It was a long road out. I am going to take my story and create something beautiful out of it, as opposed to making these memories sad reflections. Let it empower me. The funny thing is when I do sing it, people really spark. I sing (she sings a line) and they all want to sing along. It feels so good. Everybody has their Sweet Georgia, where they came from that was kind of messed up, but it is time to embrace the things that made us who we are (without) making it such a sad story,” she says.  

Children who move around usually have a tendency to become very shy or they make friends easily.

Tawny Ellis says, “I am a little bit of both. I think moving about a lot you want so badly to make some connection and to be accepted. I just thought of this, because I do come across very extroverted and I am very nice. I am authentic and I am interested in people, but I think it started, because I so much wanted to fit in. I wanted to make friends . You learn very early on if you take an interest in what other people are doing, they are more likely to like you. I didn’t think having an attitude and being standoffish was a very good way to enter into a new town and to make friends. It doesn’t always work like that. People don’t always trust a nice person or an overly nice or enthusiastic person. It was very difficult.

We moved to a very small Mormon town in Utah, gosh when I was eight years old. We moved around quite a bit. We lived in the Philippines, New Jersey and Ohio. When we got to Utah and I became more conscious of wanting to fit in with my schoolmates and what not, it was difficult, but not just because it was such a small town, but because they all went to primary school and they were all Mormons. I had a hard time feeling that I was fitting in at any point. Someone from high school said to me you were the most popular unpopular person. Everybody knew who I was, but I was different.”

Just like with her sculpting in elementary school, Tawny Ellis found another way to express herself and to try and fit in from a very young age. 

“I fell in love with singers and singing when I was probably five. I would sing along with the radio and I had a connection. There was a Karen Carpenter song that just threw me over the edge. I was, if I could do that, I would be so happy. I fell in love with music at a very young age and I think that was my escape. That is where I would go to fit in.

When we first moved out to the middle of nowhere in Utah, I had cats and dogs. It was a country life and I rode horses and all of that. I would sit in the hay. They would stack it up and I just remember sitting on the haystacks making up songs about my cats and my dog.  I was making up songs way back then when I was seven or eight years old. I would sit and sing them. I was already in love with singing.

I started a band in my junior year of high school and I found these guys in bands who could play a Police (the band) song or something. We started doing some gigs and stuff. The attitude (from others) was what makes you think you can do that? (Editor’s note: well, she showed them, didn’t she?),” she recalls.

In part two of this interview to be published in a few days, we will delve more into our conversation with Tawny Ellis, as it relates to her album Edge Of The World. You can read part two of the interview with Tawny Ellis here.        Return to Our Front Page

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This interview by Joe Montague  published  July 30th, 2025 is protected by copyright © and is the property of Riveting Riffs Magazine All Rights Reserved.  All photos and artwork are the the property of  Tawny Ellis unless otherwise noted and all  are protected by copyright © All Rights Reserved. This interview may not be reproduced in print or on the internet or through any other means without the written permission of Riveting Riffs Magazine.