- TUNESMITH RETROFIT KELLY JOE PHELPS FULL
- TUNESMITH RETROFIT KELLY JOE PHELPS PLUS
- TUNESMITH RETROFIT KELLY JOE PHELPS FREE
My music is a reflection of all the music I loved and steeped myself in. So, I was listening to a lot of Chet Atkins, Merle Travis and some of the newer people like Leo Kottke and John Fahey. “I’d spent all this time learning improvisational music, but I’d always had an attraction to folk based music forms.
TUNESMITH RETROFIT KELLY JOE PHELPS FREE
Though he spent his early years playing free jazz, he has never strayed too far from the roots music world that has become his passion.
Since his debut album ‘Lead Me On’, came out in 1994, the Pacific Northwest based singer and songwriter has written and performed some of the most compelling slide guitar based music ever recorded. The result is ‘Brother Sinner and the Whale’, a record that may very well come to be recognized as the best of an already very impressive body of work. Together Phelps and the veteran producer embarked on a three day recording odyssey that marked their fourth collaboration since Dawson played slide on ‘Slingshot Professionals’, produced ‘Tunesmith Retrofit’ and released ‘Western Bell after it proved too daring for Rounder Records.
Three years later, his journey has wound its way to a recording studio in Vancouver, and Kelly Joe has once again beaten a path to Steve Dawson’s door with a new batch of songs tucked into his satchel that reflect both the new insights gained along the journey as well as things that have been dropped by the wayside. Kelly Joe Phelps has been doing lot of soul searching since his last record, ‘Western Bell’ came out in 2009. It’s a lonely road to go down and like the old gospel says, you’ve got to walk it for yourself. He’s an artist who plays the blues, conjuring up dust bowls and killing floors with ease, while remaining to be a singular voice that isn’t shackled by the limitations of what the genre might impose on someone of lesser skill.įor more music, check out the Kelly Joe Phelps MySpace page.It’s as thin as the edge of a razor, the road separating Heaven from Hell, sin from salvation, redemption from despair. Yet while Phelps plays in the styles of legendary figures like Doc Boggs, Mississippi John Hurt, and others who wrote and played in the same vein over half a century ago, the songs and his superlative playing come across on their own strength. It’s hard, I imagine, to find one’s own voice within a form that is of indeterminable age, avoiding the trap of imitation. Phleps is an incredible talent, one of those guys who is able to make a record of songs that sound downright ancient, even though they’re his originals. What’s not to like? Kelly Joe Phelps taking American roots music and making it his own.
TUNESMITH RETROFIT KELLY JOE PHELPS FULL
And his voice – kind of like James Taylors’ voice as left at the bottom of an ashtray – pulled me in too, full of pathos and wounded beauty.
TUNESMITH RETROFIT KELLY JOE PHELPS PLUS
I just love the songs – with the storytelling tragedies as found in early country and folk musics, plus with the visceral punch of blues. On the strength of a review, I picked up Phelps’ 1999 album, Shine Eyed Mister Zen which soon became one of my favourite albums of all time.
But, I was looking for something contemporary that struck a balance between earthy grit, and delicate, pristine playing. I like dusty, crackly records too, of course. I wanted to hear something that brought out the textures which are hinted at in Robert Johnson and Skip James records. I was looking for roots music in the blues tradition which is older and more stripped down than the electrified, 12-bar blues I’d already heard. I first heard of Kelly Joe Phelps when living in England, and regularly reading MOJO magazine. The record was co-produced by Vancouver-based Steve Dawson, who knows a few things about roots music himself, being a fellow performer. Here’s a clip of understated master blues ‘n’ folk guitarist Kelly Joe Phelps with ‘Plumb Line’, a track off of his newest record, Tunesmith Retrofit, which was recorded right here in Vancouver, BC (where Phelps often plays live solo shows, especially at Capilano College where I last saw him…).
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