Elliott was born in Chicago and raised in Colorado, where he studied guitar with Johnny Smith.
He moved to Minneapolis in 1966, and in the seventies he helped found the jazz fusion group Natural Life, which included saxophonist Bob Rockwell, bassist Billy Peterson, pianist Bobby Peterson, and drummers Bill Berg and Eric Kamau Gravatt.
In the mid 1980s he teamed up with songwriter musician Jim Pasquale to form Magic Tracks Recording Studio.
[2] He also co wrote a song that appeared on John Anderson's triple-platinum selling album Seminole Wind.
In 1996 he received the NAIRD award for his work as an engineer on Steve Earle's Grammy-nominated album Train a Comin.