Balladeer Cards

Dolan Ellis is a great singer/songwriter/guitarist who is also exceptionally talented as a photographer.  So it made sense to put the talents together and create a series of greeting cards, under the name "Balladeer Cards."

 Interestingly, the first card did not include a photograph by Dolan, but rather a photo of Dolan.  Dolan called on Bonnie Brock, who is now Webmaster of this site, to take the photograph for the card, a campfire photo to depict the spiritual aspect of the cowboy in his song, "Cowboy's Vision."  The final photograph selected can be seen on the Cowboy's Vision page of this site.  Three of the many "rejected" photographs from the sessions are shown below.  Click on a photo to see a larger version

The winning photo was clearly a great choice.  Bonnie took on the design task, collaborating with Dolan and getting great ideas from him during every step of the process.  The final result proved to be a winner.  It's a substantial card, 8.5 x 5.5, high-quality offset-printed card stock on the outside, and a parchment liner on the inside, with a CD underneath.  All Balladeer cards have followed this same format, and all include printed song lyrics.

 The next card was actually not a Christmas card, but a more generic card, "Song of Spring."  Instead of a CD, a DVD is included.  That DVD contains a recording of Dolan's original song, orchestrated to the same slides he shows on stage when he sings it.

 Next came "Arizona Christmas" in 2004, followed by "Christmas Trail" in 2005.  The 2005 Christmas card is the first with a song that is not a Dolan Ellis original.  That's okay, because it is a classic piece of cowboy poetry set to music, and a perfect choice for this series..

 If you want to order one of the Christmas cards for a friend or relative, and you aren't sure which to buy, you can read the descriptions of each on their own pages.  Or the following might help you to decide:

1) "Cowboy's Vision" is a very spiritual song about a cowboy's religious experience one Christmas Eve

2) "Arizona Christmas" is a lighthearted look at what makes Christmas in Arizona so different from most of the rest of the world

3) "Christmas Trail," although it has "Christmas" in the title and in each verse, is really more about coming home and the value of the family, a universal message that goes across boundaries of geography, race, ethnicity, and even religion.ver Songs