She was born
Dorthy (sic)
Fay Choncie in Direct,
Lamar County, Texas, United States. Her parents were Ray Choncie and Carrie Anderson. Dorthy was born on a Texas sharecropping cotton plantation, where her mother worked and where she started toiling at the age of six. She copied her mother who enjoyed singing, particularly the
Lead Belly song, "Good Morning Blues". Just months later, Ellis herself got paid for singing that song one Easter Sunday at a nearby
juke joint. However, when Ellis was at the age of 11, her mother collapsed in the fields and died from
heat stroke. Ellis went to live with a grandmother in
Wellington, Texas, before uprooting to a homeless family shelter in Paris, Texas. Around that time she married John Ellis, with whom she played in The Rockin' Aces. and wrote two self-published books,
For Blacks Only (1979) and
Hoe Cakes and Collard Greens. In 1997, Ellis recorded her debut album,
Reminiscence of the Blues, which was issued by Crying Tone Records. Ellis wrote or co-wrote eight of the ten tracks on her final album,
Blues with an Attitude (2012). In 2014, she was in hospital struggling with the effects of pneumonia, which led to her being resuscitated on three occasions. The drama was compounded when, upon returning home after months of treatment, Ellis discovered her house had been subject to a burglary with her losing jewelry, coins and photographs from her lengthy life and career. Ellis died on September 1, 2018, at the age of 82. ==Compilation album re-releases==