Man and guitar

Kelly Joe Phelps will perform solo in Olympia

ROSS RAIHALA, THE OLYMPIAN

Originally published Friday, March 22, 2002

Kelly Joe Phelps can't help but pick up a guitar.

"Even after six weeks on the road, I've got a guitar just sitting there waiting to go again," said Phelps with a laugh. "It's something you really learn to love."

Phelps returned last week from a European tour that concluded with a pair of sold-out shows in London. He'll play his first concert since returning to the States tonight in Olympia.

A Sumner native who grew up surrounded by country and folk music, the 42-year-old Phelps has earned a reputation as one of the country's leading acoustic slide blues guitarists.

He has played on records by Greg Brown, Townes Van Zandt and Son Volt/Uncle Tupelo's Jay Farrar and has toured with the likes of B.B. King, Leo Kottke and Keb' Mo'.

England's Mojo magazine praised the "mesmeric blur of Phelps' moaning, free-wheeling vocalizing and dizzying guitar impressionism ... great shimmering slabs of sound are wrenched from Phelps' lap- position guitar with a physicality that belies the speed and accuracy of the notes."

A New York Times review compared Phelps' music to "the spacious melodicism of Joni Mitchell (and) the well-grounded improvisations of blues masters like Mississippi Fred McDowell ... his croon also invoked the light phrasing of Paul Simon; his playing may have echoed heroes like Bukka White, but it also rode on vapors of Bach and Phelps' fellow American experimentalist Bill Frisell."

Phelps himself prefers to let his music do the talking, and he's done just that over a series of albums released on Rykodisc.

On last year's "Sky Like a Broken Clock," former Canned Heat bassist Larry Taylor and Morphine drummer Billy Conway backed up Phelps. The album consisted of all original material, but did not feature Phelps' famous acoustic slide guitar work.

"I think it was just happenstance," Phelps said. "As the songs were coming out during the writing process, I would decide how best to support the lyrics. And, for whatever reason, they constantly came out on the straight guitar."

Last month, Rykodisc released a limited-edition mini- album featuring five songs left over from the "Sky Like a Broken Clock" sessions as the "Beggar's Oil E.P."

"I wouldn't consider them to be castoffs as much as the extras that didn't have the right feel for the record," said Phelps. "It's really for the fans I already have, like a goodwill gesture to them."

And while Phelps has played some recent shows with Taylor and Conway, including a gig at Seattle's Experience Music Project in January, he'll perform solo in Olympia.

"We are looking to do some more shows together, and I'm sure we will," said Phelps. "But playing solo feels the most natural and I enjoy it quite a lot. I suppose I'm lucky that way as, in the end, maybe this music is best suited for a guitar and a voice."

Ross Raihala covers entertainment for The Olympian and can be reached at 360-754-5406 or rraihala@olympia.gannett.com.

Kelly Joe Phelps

- What: The blues guitarist and Washington native will perform with opening act Scott Cossu.

- When: 7:30 p.m. March 22.

- Where: The Washington Center for the Performing Arts, 512 Washington St. S.E., Olympia.

- Tickets: Tickets: $18.50-$21.50 adults; $16.50-$19.50 students, seniors and military; and $9.75-$10.75 youths.

- For information: Call The Washington Center box office at 360-753-8586.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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