All
songs written by Kelly Joe Phelps (Pilgrim's Way
Publishing/BMI, Administered by Bug) except "Hard
Time Killin'"
Floor Blues by Nehemiah Skip James (Wynwood Music Co./BMI)
and "I Am the Light of This World"
by Reverend Gary Davis (Chandos Music Co./ASCAP)
TAP
THE RED CANE WHIRLWIND (January 2005 / Rykodisc / True North Records)
SOLO
CONCERT RECORDINGS
Kelly
Joe Phelps - vocals, acoustic guitar
produced
by Lee Townsend
Recording
and Mixing Engineer: Shawn Pierce Mastering Engineer: Greg Calbi
Recorded at McCabe's, Santa Monica, CA
and Freight and Salvage, Berkeley, CA
March, 2004
Mixed at MX Solutions, Vancouver, British Columbia Mastered at Sterling
Sound, New York City
Design:
Gwen Terpstra
Photography:
Michael Wilson
REVIEWS
"Seven
albums into his career, the jazz guitarist turned acoustic country
blues man has increasingly been balancing old standards an forgotten
nuggets with his own material. For 'Tap the Red Cane Whirlwind',
his current live album, the only non originals included are Skip
James' "Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues" and Rev. Gary Davis' "I
am the Light of the World", and while this may not delight the
traditionalists it's difficult to raise much cause for complaint
when you hear dusty voiced Phelps picking his way through the hauntingly
plaintive "Cardboard Box of Batteries" or the melancholic "Not
So Far to Go"."
"Over the years, he's graduated to a level on par with the
likes of Waits and Springsteen in his storytelling as he weaves
his tales of life's bruised hearts in search of their dreams and
his fingers slide over the guitar strings like it's God strumming
the notes. Frankly even six minutes or so in the company of "Tommy"
or "Waiting for Marty" just doesn't seem long enough.
Soak up and enjoy." - www.birmingham101.com
"No
one could accuse today's generation of new musicians of ignoring
the primal call of the blues. But amid the holler and swagger
of the new revivalists, the music of Kelly Joe Phelps shimmers
like cool water in a desert. Phelps deals in subtlety, intimacy
and nuance with expert finesse.
'Tap
the Red Cane Whirlwind', featuring just the sound of his flying
finger work and world-weary vocals, distills his music close
to its very essence." - Metro (UK)
"On
his last couple of albums, Kelly Joe Phelps had moved from the
solo work of his earlier efforts to fronting studio bands. On this
first live album of his career, Phelps is back in a solo setting
playing longer, extended versions of songs like "Jericho"
and "Fleashine" from the band albums. As always, Phelps¹s
guitar playing, rooted in the styles of the old blues masters
and tempered with a jazz-like improvisatory imagination, hypnotically
pulls the listener deeply into his often-impressionistic lyrics.
Phelps also stretches out on long renditions of Skip James¹s
Hard Time Killin¹ Floor Blues and Reverend Gary Davis¹s
I Am the Light of the World that demonstrate his deep-from-the-well
understanding of traditional blues and gospel music."
****1/2 -- Mike Regenstreif, The Montreal Gazette
"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
"Over
the course of a half dozen exquisite albums. Kelly Joe Phelps has
established himself as one of the most natural heirs to the country
blues tradition of Robert Johnson, Skip James and Charlie Patton,
his huge natural talent employed without a trace of artifice or
archival inertia. In Phelps'
hands, the old, hard world of the blues comes vividly alive again,
its field hands replaced by the sad, lonely outsiders commemorated
in such touching manner in songs like "Tommy"
and "Waiting for Marty", and its wandering hobos substituted
for by the carnies and grifters adrift in a world they don't control
in "Not So Far to Go". This live album features his nimble
fingerpicking and hickory-smoked groan on all original material
apart from the Rev. Gary Davis' "I Am the Light of the World" and
a leisurely but involving version of Skip James' "Hard Time
Killing Floor Blues". His own songs are full of striking,
resonant images, delivered in the weatherbeaten tones that effortlessly
evoke a sense of weariness and loss."
- The Independent (UK)
"The
transition of Phelps from acoustic blues copyist to audaciously
original singer-songwriter has been thrilling to behold. His
first live album captures him in both styles, with jaw-dropping
covers of "Killin' Floor Blues" and "I Am the
Light of the World", plus seven of his own compositions,
which illustrate his rare ability to create memorable characters
and compelling narratives in half a dozen verses. In little over
an hour he draws you into the world of his songs to the point
where everything else ceases to exist." - Nigel Williamson Uncut
(UK)
Poet
of the Badlands
"When
you listen to 'Tap the Red Cane Whirlwind', the badlands of South Dakota
come to mind: scorched plains, tumble-down barns, and scrawny dogs
lolling aimlessly in the sun. Phelps is an man with lyricism deep within
his bones, a poet to rival Tom Waits and possibly even Cohen and Dylan.
The
musicianship can be rated just as highly. Phelps's guitar playing is
exquisite." - Red Popper (UK)
There
are few artists who offer the raw sincerity and accomplished musical
acumen that guitarist, singer and songwriter Kelly Joe Phelps does.
From his first offering, "Lead Me On", on the Burnside label
through his subsequent studio outings for Rykodisc, Phelps has done
something remarkable: forged himself a solid identifying mark as a
folk and blues musician of distinction in fields that owe so much to
the past latter day performers are usually crushed under the weight
of them. Tap The Red Cane Whirlwind (blue ital.) is a collection of
solo live performances recorded in California in 2004. Lee Townsend
who has long been affiliated with him, produced the set. It opens with
a nine and a half minute version of Skip James' "Hard Time Killing
Floor Blues." Phelps snakily moves the tune through various modes
and modulations, delving deep into Delta blues tonalities and backside
melodies that open up spaces inside it. His voice, smoky and sweetly
raspy is never harsh, though it often sounds like it is inhabited by
ghosts. It's a stunner. The other cover here is a smoking version of
the late Rev. Gary Davis's "I am The Light Of This World." Dignfied,
soulful and spot on musically, Phelps is a dynamite guitarist who adds,
subtracts and morphs figures onto the original fingerstyle lines, and
uses his voice to offer evidence of the timelessness of the lyric.
And as moving and virtuosic as these two performances are, it's his
own songs that offer the true prize of this collection. There's "Jericho," with
its spooky droning bassline just under some slippery, winding fingerstyle
playing, all of it support a vocal that comes from some lost world,
just beyond the pale to impart a tale from antiquity that weighs heavily
on the forbidding present juncture. The stinging folk blues of "Gold
Tooth,"
showcases Phelps ability to make the strings literally dance as his singing
tugs at the end of lines while driving others deeper into the spectral
groove. The tenderness inherent in "Waiting For Marty" is elegiac,
full of sepia tones and the notion of bittersweet memory. Here is the
place where longing, regret for a life squandered and the acceptance
of things as they are, even as they drift away into ether and invisible
history, is, literally, unlike any other song out there. Simply stated,
if there is one recording that captures the sum of the magic, power,
and poetry that is Kelly Joe Phelps, this one's it. - Thom Jurek, All
Music Guide
"Like
the sound of some impossible invention built from theremin, pedal steel,
saw, omnichord, sitar and the whir of hummingbirds, the sound of Kelly
Joe Phelps' guitar has no derivation and no blueprint, save his own
soul. He sings with an urgent, slurred whisper (like he hears the law
outside the juke-joint door), and he writes songs -- sometimes visionary,
mostly sustained by the holy blues -- with creative gravitas that's
soaked in all the experiences of a life deeply lived. One doesn't expect
such lyrical and vocal talent from virtuoso guitar improvisers. Like
Tom Waits and Townes Van Zandt, Phelps reconfigures the blues with
every pluck and breath. Like no one else filed under "folk," he
creates his own tradition."
-- By Roy Kasten, Riverfront Times
