Biography

Over a career that spanned four decades, Kelly Joe Phelps expanded the parameters of modern blues through his strong commitment to literary songs and his expressive yet simple guitar stylings. His roots as a jazz bassist in Seattle and Portland informed the idiosyncratic style of his guitar work, and he went on to launch a successful solo career as a singer/songwriter in the mid-1990s. Known for his lap-style slide guitar work, Phelps' stripped-down amalgam of classic Delta blues, folk, and country with echoes of jazz won him critical acclaim, and he spent the next decade touring incessantly and recording a series of highly regarded albums for the Rykodisc label, including Roll Away the Stone (1997), Shine Eyed Mister Zen (1999), and Tap the Red Cane Whirlwind (2005). The experimental, all-instrumental Western Bell (2009) was a career highlight, and after a 2010 collaboration with Corinne West, Phelps made just one more solo record in 2012's sparse but captivating Brother Sinner and the Whale. He died in May 2022. Phelps was raised in a music-loving household in Sumner, Washington, near Tacoma. His father, an air conditioning and refrigeration specialist, played guitar, fiddle, piano, and harmonica, while his mother played guitar and banjo. In addition to the country and blues music he heard his parents playing, Phelps became interested in jazz during his teenage years, particularly artists like Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis. Playing guitar since the age of 12, he soon took up the bass and worked his way into Seattle's jazz scene. After moving down to Portland, Oregon in 1980, he found equally vibrant jazz and blues scenes and spent the better part of the next ten years playing in small jazz groups. While jazz remained a passion, at home and in private, he would continue to play guitar, occasionally experimenting with a slide to coax bluesier tunes from his instrument. By the early '90s, Phelps had become enamored of blues greats like Mississippi Fred McDowell and Robert Pete Williams and converted himself into a blues guitarist, playing his acoustic guitar laid flat on his lap with a heavy slide bar. His solo debut, Lead Me On, was released by Portland indie Burnside Records in 1994. Featuring little more than guitar, vocals, and a percussive stomp box, it featured a mix of originals and interpretations of traditional blues songs and garnered enough national attention to attract the Rykodisc label, which released his follow-up, Roll Away the Stone, in 1997. Phelps continued to build on his growing success with albums like 1999's Shine Eyed Mister Zen and 2001's all-original Sky Like a Broken Clock, the latter of which made a strong showing on the Billboard blues chart. After 2003's Slingshot Professionals and a highly rated 2005 live collection, Tap the Red Cane Whirlwind, Phelps' label, Rykodisc, folded and joined the roster of esteemed roots label Rounder Records. His lone recording for the label, 2006's Tunesmith Retrofit, proved to be another career high, reaching number five on the blues chart. Already something of a maverick, Phelps' next release was something of a left turn. Atmospheric and more experimental than his previous work, 2009's Western Bell consisted of 11 guitar instrumentals. Phelps continued to stretch out with 2010's Magnetic Skyline, a collaborative project with singer and songwriter Corinne West. Returning to the studio with longtime producer and collaborator Steve Dawson, Phelps recorded what ended up being his last studio album. Released in 2012 by Canadian label Black Hen, Brother Sinner & the Whale was a collection of mostly original blues and folk tunes about spiritual themes. A year after its release, Phelps was diagnosed with ulnar neuropathy, which led him to retire from touring and recording. Kelly Joe Phelps died in Iowa on March 31, 2022; he was 62 years old. ~ Richard Skelly & Timothy Monger, Rovi