Some blues records are made. Others are lived. Tinsley Ellis’s forthcoming album, Labor Of Love, out January 30, 2026 on Alligator Records, is very much the latter — a raw, self-produced set of 13 original songs that sounds less like a studio project and more like a front-porch confession from a guy who has spent forty years chasing the ghosts of Muddy Waters, B.B. King and Howlin’ Wolf up and down the American highway.

It’s the Atlanta guitarist’s second acoustic outing, following 2024’s Blues Music Award-nominated Naked Truth, but this time every note is his own. No standards. No safety net. Just Ellis, a handful of vintage guitars, and the songs he couldn’t shake.

The first single, “Hoodoo Woman,” premieres today alongside a new video directed by filmmaker Troy Bieser. Ellis credits Mississippi Hill Country legend R.L. Burnside as the spark. “I did shows with R.L. here and in Europe, and his music became ingrained in my soul,” he says — and you can hear it in the track’s hypnotic, foot-stomping churn.

Labor Of Love spans the emotional map: floods, fires, voodoo spirits, personal reckonings and heaven-sent prayers. The feral opener “Hoodoo Woman” gives way to the John Lee Hooker-style groove of “Long Time,” the Skip James-inspired lament “To A Hammer,” and the Son House stomp of “Sunnyland.” To get there, Ellis spent time in Bentonia, Mississippi — birthplace of Skip James and home base of blues legend Jimmy “Duck” Holmes — even sitting in with Holmes at the famed Blue Front Café before heading straight back into the studio.

Gearheads, take note: Ellis reached for six different open tunings across his 1969 Martin D-35, a 12-string Martin D-12-20 and a 1937 National Steel O Series, and — for the first time on record — picks up the mandolin on three tracks.

Since Naked Truth dropped, Ellis has been criss-crossing the country on what he affectionately calls his “Two Guitars And A Car” solo tour, and he plans to keep it rolling well into 2026. As Premier Guitar recently put it, he’s “an American music treasure… one of modern blues’ greatest performers.”

Labor Of Love will be available on CD, Georgia peach-colored vinyl LP, and at all digital service providers on January 30, 2026.

Watch the new “Hoodoo Woman” video and dig into more from Alligator Records here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjRuSI9wOvVKrKMPmjabYQA