If only Michael could swim as well as Kelly Joe plays...
... he'd win every Olympic medal ever minted. Kelly Joe Phelps is a complete musician. There's the late John Martyn in the oblique lyrics, the young Tom Waits in the grungy vocals and the legendary Blind Lemon Jefferson in the virtuoso picking.
In recent years, Phelps has moved towards jazz, but if you want to know where he's coming from, listen to to Piece by Piece: "Oh, if I could roll back all the years and talk to my daddy's dad / about all the fears that maybe he had had / I might get some light to shine down this dusty old dry well." And then there's his country influences as seen in this superb performance at Freight and Salvage in Berkeley on 1 February. There should be gold medals for this kind of thing. Anyone can swim.
