Kelly Joe Phelps - Four Albums

Lead Me On (1994)

Tracklist -

01 I've Been Converted
02 Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues
03 Where Do I Go Now
04 Love Me Baby Blues
05 Lead Me On
06 Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed
07 Leavin' Blues
08 Marking Stone Blues
09 The Black Crow Keeps Flying
10 I'd Be A Rich Man
11 Someone To Save Me
12 Motherless Children
13 Fare Thee Well

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Amazon Description Not since Lucinda Williams debuted with an all-acoustic solo album of traditional country blues in 1979 has an artist appeared on the folk-blues scene with the immediate authority of guitarist Kelly Joe Phelps. Equally indebted to traditional pioneers of Delta-style country blues like Leadbelly and Blind Lemon Jefferson as to more exploratory visionaries like Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder (Phelps plays much of this album on a slack-tuned Hawaiian guitar, a style Cooder popularised), Phelps sings with dusty wisdom and plays like a master. A former jazz bassist, Phelps has an impeccable sense of timing, essential to a music so immediate. Opening with the traditional gospel tune "I've Been Converted" but focusing almost exclusively on magnificent originals after that, LEAD ME ON is an immensely satisfying, exciting album announcing the arrival of a major country-blues talent.

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This is KJP's first solo album and if, like me, you dig the blues and outstanding guitar playing - then dig this - it is stunningly good.






Slingshot Professionals (2003)

Tracklist -

01. Jericho
02. Window Grin
03. Slingshot Professionals
04. Not So Far To Go
05. It's James Now
06. Waiting For Marty
07. Knock Louder
08. Cardboard Box Of Batteries
09. Circle Wars
10. Rusting Gate

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Though Kelly Joe Phelps initially attracted attention for his virtuosity on slide guitar, he continues to extend his musical dimensions with each release. Once a solo troubadour, here the singer-songwriter features his richest arrangements to date, as producer Lee Townsend enlists stellar support from guitarists Bill Frisell and Steve Dawson, violinist Jesse Zubot, percussionist Scott Amendola (who's worked with Charlie Hunter), accordionist/keyboardist Chris Gestrin, vocalist Petra Haden (daughter of jazz great Charlie Haden), and bassists Andrew Downing and Keith Lowe. The musical atmospherics occasionally invite comparisons with kindred spirits such as Bruce Cockburn (the opening "Jericho"), Mark Knopfler ("Window Grin"), Richard Thompson ("Not So Far to Go"), and even a hint of Tom Waits ("Waiting for Marty"), but in the end Phelps defies categorization. A singer of bluesy grit, he remains a great guitarist, yet he plays with an understatement that enhances the material, rather than overwhelming the listener with hot licks. ~ Don McLeese

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Tap The Red Cane Whirlwind(2004)

Tracklist -

1. Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues
2. Not So Far To Go
3. Jericho
4. Fleashine
5. Cardboard Box Of Batteries
6. Gold Tooth
7. Tommy
8. I Am The Light Of The World
9. Waiting For Marty

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A live album from Kelly Joe Phelps to follow the magnificent 'Slingshot Professionals'. With this release, Kelly had a dizzyingly high standard to live up to and he instantly kept me on-side as his captivating (almost hypnotic) vocals carried me through the opener 'Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues'. The album also features an astonishing rendition of Reverand Gary Davis' 'I Am the Light of the World', with the rest made up of favorite Kelly Joe originals. This is one of the most intimate recordings; dim the lights, close your eyes and it almost seems like Kelly Joe is giving you a private personal performance in your living room - a really special listening experience. A truly inspirational collection of songs that will breathe new life into those mistreated speakers. ~ Darren Howells, Blues Matters

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Tunesmith Retrofit (2006)

Tracklist -

01. Crow's Nest
02. The Anvil
03. Spanish Hands
04. Plumb Line
05. Scapegoat
06. Big Shaky
07. Tight To The Jar
08. MacDougal
09. Loud As Ears
10. Red Light Nickel
11. Handful Of Arrows
12. Tunesmith Retrofit

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A year and a half after his remarkable live album, Tap the Red Cane Whirlwind, Kelly Joe Phelps returns to the studio with his restless, searing, intimate vision and remarkable skills as both an instrumentalist and a songwriter. While Phelps employs several musicians from his past, such as guitarist Steve Dawson, fiddler Jesse Zubot, and keyboardist Chris Gestrin (all of whom played on 1983's Slingshot Professionals), there's nothing here that's reminiscent of that set. First and foremost, Phelps is a songwriter here. Phelps looks at his subjects, such as the lover in "Spanish Hands," from the side. He communicates directly while peeling back the layers of appearance, and describes her as both "a gentle bell" and "a cat's eye." This is the songwriter as poet, heard over and again as the subtly shaded instrumental backdrops caress his words lovingly, letting them roll out unencumbered. In the opener, "Crow's Nest," his acoustic guitar is unassuming as he trots out the words "Come along to the riverside, sit down now/I just want to hear somebody else whine/If you've got tomorrow, I've got a blade/We can dig a hole into an old book/We can keep our secrets there." He allows the truth of desperation, love, and the willingness of other possibilities all to emerge before Zubot floats his way in and adorns that guitar with some lonesome balladry of his own. On "The Anvil," Wallace Stevens' ghost comes to visit in Phelps imagery, metaphors, and similes, accompanied by a shuffling snare and a pump organ as he sings "There is an eye walking curiously/By the campground, the bedside night stand/My leg bones feel weary yet walk on they will/Holding for wheels and gravy/On a plate full of nothing but shaking my head/With a side bowl of nothing to do." His rhymes touch the inside, looking at difficulty and confusion from a nearly wistful place, longing for he knows not what. But it's Phelps use of the banjo on Tunesmith Retrofit that is the album's biggest surprise. (Before recording this set, he hadn't played one in 20 years.) He doesn't try to play bluegrass, nor does he try to haunt the ghosts of those players who have gone before. His high lonesome breakdown on "Scapegoat" is infused with the blues, late-20th century classical music, and flamenco. He moves through them all, always returning to the night owl song of the bluegrass breakdown before it all falls apart and comes home to roost in emptiness. Another instrumental is "MacDougal," the rag tribute to Dave Van Ronk, "the Mayor of MacDougal Street" in New York. Phelps lets whimsy carry his playing that touches on Rev. Gary Davis, Jorma Kaukonen, Bert Jansch, Sandy Bull, and yes, Van Ronk himself. The lover's conflict on "Loud as Ears," another solo acoustic guitar effort, brings to mind Davy Graham in style, but it is all Phelps' distillations of folk styles from British to American to roots. But here again, it's Stevens who comes to haunt Phelps' startlingly original lyrics: "Old dark ruby coats his throat/Gloves a feathered mind/Sharpens up her fountain pen/Lays ink down along the table/Plaintive brickyard, textbook line/Whips her fable down/As long as she is able." The meta text here is Phelps writing about writing, and its inability to reach through conflict to communicate, all to the accompaniment of his acoustic guitar making its way through history. The banjo moans again in the intro to "Handful of Arrows," a tribute to the late guitarist and songwriter Chris Whitley, who died in abject poverty in 2006. Here high and low lonesome hold hands and dance as a Weissenborn guitar, drums, and bass come to join the banjo's long, sad, weeping rage. Tunesmith Retrofit is another side of Phelps to be sure, as a songwriter who understands the actual music of poetry and creates a loose, coarse weave that allows the listener room to inhabit and live inside his songs. His rhythm is true, his words are impure, his songs are nearly glorious. Once more, Phelps shatters expectations and conjures something truly original and brave in the process. ~ by Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

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