Kelly Joe Phelps taps the Delta Muse once again

Kelly Joe Phelps–Tunesmith Retrofit,

Perhaps because of the frequent inclement weather, dust from the Mississippi Delta has been swept across the country. Seattle-based Kelly Joe Phelps must have inhaled some of this dust somewhere along the line, because it has coated his vocal chords and seemingly his soul with a layer of melancholy and smoke that sounds more at home outside a share-cropper’s hovel than it does by the nearest Starbucks.

Phelps began his career as a free-jazz bass player, but sometime in his mid-twenties, he discovered the music of misery-masters such as Dock Boggs and Mississippi John Hurt. He found his own voice, a voice steeped in Jacksonian back-alley pain and vagabond glory.

Critical acclaim came to Phelps during his early career because of his virtuosic mastery of lap-slide guitar. Albums such as Roll the Stone Away and Shine Eyed Mister Zen remind up-and-coming guitar slingers that they are not nearly as good as they imagine themselves, and Phelps audience include such guitarists as U2s Edge, who must sit slack-jawed as they hear the ease with which KJP weaves improvisational melodies around his already progressive chord structures.

Lately, Phelps has laid aside the steel slide that has served him for so many years, and he has begun to focus his career on songwriting. His latest album Tunesmith Retrofit follows this Muse, and although guitarists probably will be a bit disappointed in Phelps straightforward guitar arrangements and lack of pyrotechnic improvisation, this album contains some of KJPs most mature and sophisticated songs (lyrically and musically).

Phelps songs on Tunesmith allow him to play the role of both storyteller and eulogist. He opens the album with Crow’s Nest, a lovely and loose four-verse ballad that tells the story of two young lovers’ play down by the riverside.

I know of another place beneath some overgrown vine
I can cut them back and help you down
There I’ll listen to every song you know
And clap when you are through
Maybe then I will kiss you

The melody and intricacy of “Spanish Hands� help the listener fall in the love with the girl of the piece while infusing him with both the pain and glory of loss and love. Phelps expresses his own personal loss in the song “Handful of Arrows� (written about the late Chris Whitley) by entreating his dead colleague to “Play again, oh/ Tap on the board/ I could use a song here, now/ Word Unheard, None ever burned/ A room to set me in.�

Tunesmith does contain some interesting surprises, one of which being KJPs use of the banjo for two tunes. Apparently, he experimented with the banjo early in his career, but it has taken him a decade to record with one. Guitarists looking for old-style Phelps thrills will not be disappointed with “Skapegoat�, an impossibly fast banjo tune that demostrates that this fret master has not lain aside his sophisticated chops because he had to.

All in all, the album still leaves the listener haunted by ghosts of passion and rootsy guts borne out of the pain of Delta blues, but Phelps is not content to rest on his laurels and simply do what made him famous. Instead, he continues to surprise us, and with Tunesmith Retrofit he rides the Delta Muse like Pecos Bill rides the Cyclone.

“Come on, Fhqwgads,”

I am a huge fan of the Homestarrunner.  Are you?  If not, you probably should be…

 What are your favorite Homestar moments?

Cowardice

I have a good friend who recently earned his Master’s Degree in a highly competitive field, and he was having a tremendous amount of trouble finding a job within that field.  So, he decided to move back home with his parents until he found gainful employment.  It sounded reasonable enough, but three months later, with only a temp. job in a doctor’s office, it looks as though this guy is going to end up with his parents long-term.

Then, there’s Quarter-Life Crisis.com, a website dedicated to young college graduates who can’t figure out what to do with their lives.  More and more people are choosing to return home after college and live with mom and dad, instead of striking out on their own.  I can’t explain just why, but I find this phenomenon utterly enraging.

Maybe it’s because when I graduated from college,  I felt two distinct obligations: 1.to no longer burden my parents 2.to make a life of my own.  Therefore, I chose to move to Atlanta, to an area where I had never been, with no one I had previously known, to start my life. 

I’m not going to say I never regretted my decision.  Times got really hard. Money was tight, and I was living in an area of North Atlanta that has no public transportation.  Because of my inability to drive, I often found myself walking (or later biking) the four miles to work every day.  I lived in a ghetto little studio apartment, and a week after I moved out someone was shot and killed at my apartment complex.  Times were hard, but I survived.  Eventually, I survived well, and I definitely do not regret my first independant year.

I guess I’m enraged at people who have more gifts and ability than I do being content with living at home with Mom and Dad.  Why is it that we postpone adulthood as long as possible in our culture?  I grew up looking forward to being an adult, and I knew what I had to do when the time came for me to grow up.  I probably have more excuses than most people for living with people who could help me, but I refuse to do it.  Survival is hard, but it ain’t nearly as hard as these Quarter-Lifers make it out to be. 

In my view, you’ll never figure out what you want to do unless you try to live without a net.

The Destructability of the World

We celebrated my wife’s birthday last weekend by taking a trip to Panama City, Florida.  During our stay, I had one of the most memorable experiences of my life.  Six of us took a boat out to Shell Island and discovered that we were being followed by a group of dolphins.  James, Jason, and I jumped into the water, and we actually swam and played with these magnificient mammals.  I won’t soon forget how playful and gentle these massive animals were, and Haley really enjoyed touching and playing with them too.

All this brings a question to my mind.  There are laws against feeding the dolphins in the wild, and if you are caught feeding them, you are fined heavily.  Apparently, the consensus is that if poeple feed the dolphins in the wild, over time they will lose the ability to hunt for their own food.  Do you think that this is possible?  Could man have an impact on the inborn instinct of animals?  

In a larger sense, can man have a significant impact on the ecology of the world and its inhabitants?  Is the world so delicate that man can break it through negligence or deliberate malevolence?  What do you think?Š