Maybe before stepping on stage he'll recall the time his band opened for Hendrix in '67 or the night not too many years back in Louisville, when this reporter watched him steal thunder from punk goddess Patti Smith, after she made the mistake of going on before Ronny Elliott.
But in all probability, Elliott will just grin and nonchalantly mutter something like "OK, let's go" to his buddies in The Nationals, the band that has backed him for the past decade. Tampa's most renowned singer/songwriter will then stand before an appreciative audience this weekend at his favorite venue, Skipper's Smokehouse, and it will be 60 years to the day since Ronny Elliott was born in Birmingham, Ala. Chances are, he will have prepared no set list — let alone any kind of in-between-song banter. Folks will witness a humble, tell-it-like-it-is guy who lives on Davis Islands, a self-described "aging hippie do-gooder" who likes listening to World War II-era artists such as Grandpa Jones, the man playing on the living room stereo when I recently visited.
"I remember him from childhood," Elliott says while keeping one eye on his dog, Jamaica, who pounced on this reporter during a past visit to the home Ronny shares with wife Jenifer. "[Jones] is the guy who wrote 'Mountain Dew' and then he ended up on Hee Haw and got much bigger, but he was a Grand Ole Opry star, banjo player, comedian, singer/songwriter."
Maxine Elliott and her only son relocated to Tampa when he was in the second grade. Ronny's lived here ever since, enjoying two distinct music careers, early and late — thanks in part to an appreciation of fine music fostered by Mom's passion for both country and blues greats. With this bedrock of knowledge to draw from and a love for early Elvis Presley records, Elliott picked up a guitar at an early age and then a bass and eventually played in bands such as the prototype country-rock outfit Your Local Bear, which opened for Hendrix at Tampa's Curtis Hixon Hall.
One of Elliott's other bands, Noah's Ark, put out a few sides on Decca. That initial flirtation with rock 'n' roll fame and glory also found Elliott on a revival tour in '68 playing bass for Chuck Berry and Gene Vincent, two of his childhood heroes. The former invited Elliott for a visit at his Berry Park amusement center, boasting, "There's only one cop in Wentzville, and I've got Polaroids of him."
After switching from playing to promoting concerts, working for Hillsborough County and other employers, Elliott re-emerged in the mid-'90s as a singer/songwriter in the alt-country mode. He quickly established himself (unintentionally, of course) as a cult figure/critic's darling, earning glowing reviews in international publications such as Billboard, Rolling Stone Germany and the highly regarded English glossy Mojo, which placed his '05 CD Valentine Roadkill in its annual Top 10. Elliott now regularly tours Europe, where he sells more discs than he does in the States. Most area residents know his music through airplay on WMNF-FM (88.5), the community radio station sponsoring the show Saturday.
Chances are, at some point in the evening, Elliott will perform "Born in 1947," a song that brilliantly ties his birth to the dawn of rock 'n' roll. Elliott knows and adores the history of popular music — especially the stories that accompany the hillbilly and R&B sides on which he was raised. It's a subject he probes with incisive wit and humor on such songs as "Tell the King the Killer's Here," "The Twist Came From Tampa," "Same Three Chords," "When Mr. Blues Came to Town," "Last Days of Tampa Red" and "Elvis Presley Didn't Like Tampa."
Elliott's …A Postcard from Jack LP features a picture of him, as a boy, standing with Elvis. It was snapped while The King filmed Follow That Dream in '61. "When I found out he was coming to Florida, I began getting anyone who was old enough to drive to take me up to Crystal River to see Elvis every day that I could," Elliott says. "One day my grandmother started telling Elvis how I got into scuffles at school about Elvis Presley, and he laughed and said, 'I'll teach you something to take care of yourself.' And I asked if it was karate, because I had read he was into that. He laughed and said, 'Yes.'
Elliott later adds, "There was an aura about him."
Elliott jokingly calls himself the "Forrest Gump of rock 'n' roll." After all, he has enjoyed face time with Presley, Berry, Vincent, Eric Clapton, Jackie Wilson and Duane Allman — to name just a few. When he was a young man playing with his heroes, it was one thing, Elliott explains, but being able to get on stage during this second phase of his career is even more special.
"I would think it would be the other way around, that some part of the thrill would be gone or there'd be some little tarnish on the shine," he says. "But there's not. I enjoy playing now more than I did as a kid."
This article appears in Apr 18-24, 2007.
