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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
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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
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