In 1995, I had the pleasure of spending an evening with
Townes Van Zandt at McCabe's Guitar Store in Santa Monica. There was a certain
magic that night, watching this old troubadour still hanging on to his life,
singing off key, sometimes rambling, but always conjuring up the image of an
old blues singer sitting on his front porch, sipping whiskey and telling
stories in song. That same night a young, clean-cut musician from Portland,
Oregon, ambled out and proceeded to do what so many young blues musicians do:
he played his heart out. He was in his 30s but sounded like he was centuries
old. That night he performed the nearly forgotten genre of blues spirituals. He
was like an angel holding court with one of the true saints of the surviving
wild-eyed, whiskey-driven singer-songwriter movement slowing fading away into
an alcoholic mortality. Kelly Joe Phelps was like a witness to a passing,
fading comet as it seemed inevitable that Van Zandt was in his final years.
But, just by his presence, Phelps assured us all that the music would endure -
as it always does. That night he sat in on the encore The Banks of the Ohio, and Phelps hesitated to start, just quietly
sitting there. Eventually, Van Zandt looked over at him and said, "Man, are you
playing?" Phelps looked up and with all humility said, "I was listening to you,
man!" It was a moment of continuity and grace.
Troubadours like Kelly Joe Phelps seem to have treaded a
thousand rivers of blues to find the right waters for their sound. If the blues
are many rivers flowing into one sea, Phelps has certainly followed more than
one of them. His beginnings in music were the blue jazz of Miles Davis and John
Coltrane. Phelps soon found the country blues of Fred McDowell and Robert Pete
Williams. He followed this stream to learn lap slide guitar and a distinctive
finger-picking style sounding eerily close to Townes Van Zandt. The same can be
said of his songwriting ability. Phelps has his own voice, but it's true
listening comfort to find strands of the river of music we call Townes Van
Zandt running through his work. I can't help but wonder if the muse that flowed
between them that night at McCabe's came to reside in the core of the music of
Kelly Jo Phelps.
His first album, Lead
Me On, enhanced Phelps' love for the lap slide guitar and the brooding,
gospel-based Delta blues with a simple one-man acoustic approach. Future
recordings, like Slingshot Professionals,
found him enlarging his musical travels with more acoustic instruments.
Listening to each recording released between 1995 to 2006, something rare for
any artist begins to happen. Each album builds on the other, developing a
distinct style that is drawn from such influences as early Bruce Cockburn, Bruce
Springsteen (of Nebraska fame), Lyle Lovett, and Leo Kottke.
His picking style, while derived from early urban blues,
familiar to the era of Piedmont and even with some ragtime influence, he also
brings a 1950s-era jazz feel into his structure and arrangements, allowing
enough space for the music to breathe and create a life of its own. The pitfall
here is the danger of genre hopping. However, Phelps manages to learn the
lessons of the style and then bring them into his own work. Unlike many other artists
in this genre, he doesn't seek to imitate, re-create, or even preserve so much
as bring to bring a new vision to the music.
This approach complements both the artist and the music. The
earliest roots of blues provided a soil rich enough to be adapted to many
forms. Phelps is inventive and imaginative enough to be able to take other
styles like country, folk, and jazz and merge them with his own artistic voice,
creating a unique sound, both original and universal. So, as he continues to
add to the style mix, each album changes into a distinctive sound that is all
his own, beginning from his early jazz roots to his most recent folk-based blend.
His vocal style draws from most of the classic roots artists
of the past, but his phrasing is most closely compared to Ry Cooder. He has a
casual drawl that suggests Mississippi more than Portland. His voice becomes an
instrument equal to his guitars, crafted carefully to bring focus to the songs.
His 2006 album, Songsmith
Retrograde, is his transition into a gentle folk-ballad sound that could
easily pass for early Celtic but then has those jazz-blues sounds around its
edges. Crows Nest opens the album
with a contemplative invitation to join him on his troubadour's journey. The
instrumentals lean on his past blues picking style but add a fine folk melody
with the complexities. Lyrically, these songs bring into focus little pieces of
the life around us that sometimes go unnoticed, filled with well-worn trails,
crying babies, shoestrings on a nether wind, old men whining, and so many
illustrative threads that run through our lives.
Of the many pleasures of Retrograde, what stands out is
Phelp's use of the banjo, which he bends into a Celtic, blues instrument that
goes against the usual ironic cheerful bluegrass sound into a near apocalyptic
haunt of some folksinger's nightmare. Red
Light Nickel brings us to a midnight shanty feel, an unusual use for a
banjo. This song is a testament to his creativity and imagination.
So, if you're willing to take a ride down the many rivers
traveled by Kelly Joe Phelps, it will be a reminder of how rewarding the
journey is, even though as this vital artist continues to grow, the destination
remains a mystery.
As I listen to his music, the ghost of the Texas troubadour,
Townes Van Zandt, still seems to be out there smiling, laughing, singing along,
and maybe, just falling silent for a moment or two at the majesty of the music
he hears from his lap slide playing partner... as Kelly Joe Phelps did that
long ago night in Santa Monica.
Kelly Joe Phelps will perform on Sunday, December 14 at
McCabe's in Santa Monica, 7:30pm. The address is 3101 Pico Blvd. Santa Monica.
Phone: 310-828-4497 or visit www.mccabes.com
for ticket information.
If people are going to
like me, they'll just have to like me with my glasses on." - Buddy Holly
Terry Roland is an English teacher, freelance writer, occasional
poet, songwriter and folk and country enthusiast. The music has been in his
blood since being raised in Texas.
He came to California
where he was taught to say 'dude' at an early age.
