Kelly Joe Phelps - Lead Me On
I grew up in a meta-folkie home: Peter, Paul, and Mary LPs piled on top of Flat & Scruggs, Seeger/Guthrie concerts (Arlo, by the time I was going)…there was a lot of other music around, but American folk was the core.
While I never entirely renounced those roots, there was a period in my life when what had become “my parents’ music” seemed to lack power and (literal) electricity. Even though I “borrowed” a lot of those albums when I left for college, they didn’t get much play for years.
Then, while living in Portland, OR in the mid-1990s, a friend told me about Kelly Joe Phelps. As I recall, I may have beeen just a hair condescending: “oh, some young white guy playing acoustic blues. Ah, a slide player, you say? Yeah, that sounds great.” Nevertheless, I agreed to go see him play, probably because his regular gig at that point was playing on Sunday mornings at a cafe that I liked.
Holy. Motherfucking. Crap. The energy and power that came from that one guy, playing a guitar and a wooden “thump box” immediately brought back to me everything that I loved about American roots music, without seeming anachronistic or forced in the slightest.
None of Phelps’ records have ever measured up to hearing him live, but Lead Me On, his first album, comes closest to capturing the sound that I heard on that Sunday morning.
