Steve Tallis

Steve Tallis (born 28 October 1952) is an Australian singer-songwriter and guitar player.

Steve Tallis was born in 1952 in Maylands, Western Australia, a suburb of Perth.

He started playing music in 1962.

In February 1963, after attending a Louis Armstrong and Trini Lopez concert at the Capitol Theatre in Perth with his parents, Steve was very inspired and told his mother that he wanted to become a professional musician.

Surrounded by the traditional Macedonian music of his ancestors and traditional Greek, Yugoslav, Bulgarian and Turkish music, Steve discovered at an early age trance rhythms, improvisation and singing.

Steve Tallis was also influenced by music on the radio at the time, Them, The Animals, The Rolling Stones, Manfred Mann, Jimi Hendrix, The Yardbirds, The Kinks, The Loved Ones or Spectrum.

He later was influenced by artists such as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan or by Bengali Bauls.

He started up many bands throughout his youth, notably My Grandfather's Blues which was awarded "Band of the year" in 1967 during Hoadley's Battle of Bands, organised in parallel to the annual competition Hoadley's Battle of the Sounds.

Praised for his unconventional work, his favourite genre is blues.

He described his music as ethnic blues or tribal folk, a mix between blues and world music, with a touch of folk and gospel.

He has often been compared to a storyteller.

His style has been compared to that "of Van Morrison and Calvin Russell, but with a peculiar originality and a return to the roots of blues."

He has especially been influenced by blues, gospel and Field hollers.

He refers today to many musicians who marked his work, such as Leadbelly, John Coltrane, Tim Buckley, Captain Beefheart, Sun Ra, John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Kevin Coyne, Son House, Tom Waits, Jack Bruce and Kip Hanrahan.

Moreover, his music is still influenced by African, Indian, Haitian or Arab traditional music, on a spiritual level as well as on a rhythmic one.

Trying to go back to the roots of his influences, he studied traditional musics and their spiritual dimension.

Local musicians and friends of Steve are featured in the anthology, bringing back to life the jazz, blues and R&B music scene of the 1970s and 1980s, what led to the anthology being described as a "document of West Australia music culture."

From 1975 on, Steve Tallis started a solo career, during which he gathered many musicians to accompany him in making music but most importantly in live performances.

Among other recurring bands can be found Broken Things, My Grandfather's Blues, Jellyroll Bakers, Lucy Crown, Bitch, Fried Egg / Unit Structures, Opposition, Steve Tallis Washboard Unit, Zombi Party, Suicide Ghosts, Holy Ghosts, Troublemakers or Snakes of Desire.

In 1978, his song "Dreams" was awarded Song of the Year by The West Australian newspaper.

In 1993, Steve Tallis was named singer-songwriter of the year by The Western Australian.

Many journeys, in India (1997), Pakistan (2003) and Ghana (2005) among others, led him to explore different spiritualities that had a strong impact on his musical production : voodoo, tantra, buddhism, sufism, hinduism or Native American religions.

Steve Tallis has been called a griot or a "blues shaman", his music being entrenched in an oral tradition of storytelling, and his music has been called "tribal or even shamanic folk from an Australian griot open on world music."

In 2001, Steve Tallis released the first part of a limited edition anthology titled Anthology Volume 1 – The Sacred Path of the Fried Egg – From Maylands to the Gates of Hell (1962–2001).

It is made of 8 CDs gathering a selection of live and studio recordings, and a booklet.

It tells the story of the evolution of his music, his relationship with the city of Perth and its blues scene.

The 2004 album Loko has been produced with members of The Suicide Ghosts, percussionist Gary Ridge and violinist Dave Clarke, and develops the spiritual and shamanistic dimensions already present in the 1999 album Zozo.

He explored Afro-American hollers and classics such as the negro spiritual song "He’s Got the Whole World in his Own Hands" in the 2006 acoustic album Jezebel Spirit, accompanied by percussionist Gary Ridge.

The First Degree, which came out in 2014, was recorded with multi-instrumentalist Skip McDonald, best known as Little Axe, and drummer Evan Jenkins, a friend of Steve Tallis he had worked with in the Apache Dropouts band, and on the recording of the album Zombi Party.

His upcoming album Where Many Rivers Meet, scheduled for 2020, is a solo album recorded in mono, mixing tracks on the electric guitar Gibson SG 1961, acoustic Martin D8 1969 and 12 string acoustic Guild Jumbo 1969, and a cappella Field hollers.

He played with and accompanied many international and Australian musicians, as a guest or playing first parts.

Among other great names can be cited Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, B.B. King, Joe Cocker, Tina Turner, Eric Burdon, Buddy Guy, Mick Jagger, etc. Among Australian musicians, Richard Clapton, Paul Kelly, Chris Wilson, Daddy Cool, Billy Thorpe, Chain, The Triffids, or The Saints can be cited.

Steve Tallis played in many festivals around the world and in Australia, among which can be cited :

He has been described as "one of Australia’s most eccentric and powerful singer songwriters".

He has been acknowledged by his fellow musicians as a great bluesman.

In his tune "You Don’t Have to Be Pretty to Sing the blues", Dave Hole mentions Tallis among other very famous bluesmen :

"Albert Collins sings the Blues

Eric Clapton sings the Blues

Steve Tallis sings the Blues

B.B. King, Freddie King, Albert King"