Daniel Ellsworth & the Great Lakes recorded a debut album early last summer, but the band headed by the Woodbury native is just now getting a chance to celebrate with its first tour.
Ellsworth was preoccupied this fall as a contestant on the NBC-TV show, "The Sing Off." With that and the holidays behind him, he and his three bandmates have hit the road for a three-month, multi-city tour to promote "Civilized Man."
They sang numbers from the project Saturday at the Aster Cafe in Minneapolis, and on Sunday they will have the distinction of being the first ensemble to play at the new Merrill Performing Arts Center at 380 Rivertown Drive in Woodbury.
"I was in Los Angeles filming a TV show so I sort of put the band on hold," said Ellsworth, who was part of the a cappella group the Collective, which finished in eighth place out of the 16 teams that competed in the show's third season.
"The record was done six months ago, so the songs almost feel like they are new again."
Ellsworth's sound, which he describes as "indie-rock-pop-folkish," has caught the attention of music reviewers, who heaped praise on "Civilized Man." Amazon ranked it No. 76 on its list of the 100 Best Albums of 2011, and the single "Shoe Fits" placed No. 7 on the website's 100 Best Songs of 2011.
"Apparently nobody told Daniel Ellsworth that when you drop your first full-length, it's not supposed to be a greatest hits record," wrote Nashville radio station Lightning 100. "Every song sounds like it could be a hit. It's all over the place in a phenomenal way."
Ellsworth writes his own songs, many of which begin with ideas for lyrics that he scribbles down on scraps of paper and receipts. Eventually, they become songs that come from trying to put himself in somebody else's shoes and tell a story. That was the impetus for "Shoe Fits."
