I have stood in the presence of reputed genius a few times. I have been in the same room as Dylan on good nights and bad and I have had the privilege of watching George Best kick a football. The first time I ever knew I was experiencing genius was seeing Kelly Joe Phelps play a guitar. People, there is just no way to describe the jaw dropping effect this man had on his audience. Most pub gigs are always ruined by the liggers, those who refuse to shut up. At this gig no one had the time or ability to speak during the entire performance. An uninformed friend who’d been dragged along asked if the support was who we’d come to see. I look at him and said “No when Kelly Joe Phelps comes on you’ll notice!” I thought he might. I hoped he would.

He did! As this man started to draw his fingers across his guitar we just looked at each other in disbelief. The seeming carelessness of his hands and the obvious precision of the sound was just good. This man mastered this guitar, that sat mostly on his lap. Every part of it. The poor instrument was just captured, mastered, it had no say. He weaved his fingers at a speed that juts beggared belief. He crossed his hands up and down. He made sweet sweet sounds from the very wood around the strings. Breath taking.

Oh aye and sometimes these guitar genius’s leave a wee bit to be desired on vocals. Not Phelps. He sounds like Tom Waits might sound if his throat had some charismatic healing experience and got steeped in blues and folk and gospel. Indeed there seemed like a lot of Waits happening in the songs and in his little eccentricity. He made you laugh, he made you cry. He sang of love and spiritual pilgrimage. Then as if we weren’t in heaven, Tim O’Brien a well renowned fiddle and mandolin player just appeared at the bar and said he wasn’t bad. He was great and as well as his own few songs in the break, he and Phelps jammed like they’d rehearsed for weeks. If it was possible it added even more to an already stupendous evening. So check out his CDs but be warned. Seeing him live is the ultimate Phelps experience. It is the unbelievable one.

Steve Stockman 2/11/2000