Cafe Eleven

Kelly Joe Phelps

Friday November 30th, 2007 - $TBD

As a tunesmith, Kelly Joe Phelps already has a proven track record, with a catalogue of original songs infused with what The Washington Post calls “poignancy, passion and spirituality.” But on his sixth studio album, the Portland, Oregon-based musician still felt the need to retrofit new elements into his songwriting. “Part of it is shifting focus, away from music heavily driven by guitar to music that’s more driven by the song,” explains Phelps. “The record is stripped back in relation to the last two studio efforts, balancing combinations of solo, duo, trio and quartet and bridging the gap between my early solo recordings and later band outings.”

‘Tunesmith Retrofit’ offers a dozen compositional gems that show Phelps at the peak of his songwriting powers, tackling engaging story songs and soul-baring ballads with equal aplomb. Although his musical foundation remains country-blues and folk music, there’s nothing traditional or predictable about Phelps’ lyrical approach, which features distinctive images and refreshing turns of phrase. In the gentle ballad “Spanish Hands,” he describes a lover variously as “a gentle bell…a cat eye” and “a gold breath on a wire.” And the moody “Loud as Ears” paints a vivid portrait of a couple at odds with each other: “he’ll nod off and she will sing/he won’t dream while she won’t sew.”

Beyond the rich wordplay, Phelps latest album serves up several musical surprises, including the first original instrumentals he’s ever recorded. “MacDougal” is a spirited ragtime homage to folk legend Dave Van Ronk, who was known as the Mayor of Greenwich Village’s MacDougal Street. The other two tracks showcase instruments never featured before on Phelps’ albums. The carnival-like title track finds him playing the plaintive melodica, while “Scapegoat” has him picking a lightning-fast banjo, an instrument that Phelps abandoned at the age of 25. When a recent conversation with his girlfriend reminded him of his early love of the banjo, he rushed out that day and bought himself one. “I started sawing away and all these tunes just flowed,” recalls Phelps. “A month later, I bought another one.”

Kelly Joe Phelps - At Jools Holland