Ellen McIlwaine was an American singer-songwriter and musician born on 1 October 1945 in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Raised in Kobe, Japan, she began her musical training on the piano by performing tracks by Ray Charles, Fats Domino, and Professor Longhair that she heard on the radio. After returning to the United States, she established a stage career in the mid-1960s in Atlanta and performed at the Cafe Au Go Go in New York City. McIlwaine founded the psychedelic blues rock ensemble Fear Itself, releasing the eponymous studio recording Fear Itself (1969). She established a solo career and released the debut studio recording Honky Tonk Angel (1972). Her recording career includes the studio recording We the People (1973), which featured the track “I Don't Want to Play” (1973). Her discography includes the studio recordings The Real Ellen McIlwaine (1975) and Ellen McIlwaine (1978), the latter of which reached number 84 on the Australian charts. She collaborated with Jack Bruce on the studio recording Everybody Needs It (1982), which received a NAIRD Indie Award. In 2019, she received the Toronto Blues Society “Blues with a Feeling” Lifetime Achievement Award. McIlwaine died from esophageal cancer on 23 June 2021 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
