Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Compliments of my parents, I grew up listening to delta and country blues-- Robert Johnson, Son House, Charley Patton, Bukka White, well, you get the point. As the years went by, I found myself less and less interested in pure blues. Look at the greats-- half of Blind Willie Johnson's songs have exactly the same melody, and he wasn't even the worst offender. Formulaic lyrics and repetitive song structures just didn't do it for me anymore. I turned to jazz, blues-influenced folk such as John Fahey, and the occasional blues-based rock of modern geniuses like Chris Whitley and Ben Harper, and jam bands like Widespread Panic and the Allman Brothers. Until a few days ago, the only pure blues that held my attention came from the odd-balls like Mississippi John Hurt and Skip James. Then I heard Kelly Joe Phelps-- this album in particular. OK, so he's only one man, but he writes and plays with such soul and technical skill, and more importantly, originality that I no longer believe the form to be a lost cause. Unlike Corey Harris or Ben Harper (mentioned by another reviewer), Phelps does not attempt to simply infuse his blues with cajun and occasionally carribean sounds (like Harris), or infuse rock with folk, blues and reggae (like Harper, one of my personal favorites) in order to revamp the blues. Phelps just plays the blues. However, the difference between Phelps and someone like Dave Van Ronk (part of the 60's blues revival) is that Phelps writes songs with complex structure, melodies and rhythms rather than just rehashing Robert Johnson. Like Chris Whitley on 'Dirt Floor,' Phelps shows that the form is not a lost cause. There is still room for creativity in the blues.
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