Kelly Joe Phelps Shine Eyed Mister Zen CD

Personnel: Kelly Joe Phelps (vocals, guitar); Dave Mathis (harmonica).
Recorded at The Barley Cap, Portland, Oregon.
Personnel: Dave Mathis (harmonica).
Audio Mixer: Riley Wilson.
Recording information: The Barley Cap, Portland, OR.
Phelps' third album is an accomplished serving of country blues that combines the sweet and sour power of his guitar playing with the equally bittersweet charge of Phelps' wearied voice. Shine Eyed Mister Zen features a lot of singing, but most importantly it spotlights the singing of Phelps' slide guitar, which integrates a humid and natural style that invokes the mystery and religion that these mostly original songs lean toward. The dusty delta Phelps conjures here is at once familiar and nostalgic; it's to his credit that Phelps is able to add his own voice to the spiritual mix. A mystical and unaffected recording. ~ Michael Gallucci
For his third album, 1999's SHINE EYED MISTER ZEN, folk/blues guitarist Kelly Joe Phelps both expands and contracts his musical vision. Recorded almost solo--Dave Mathis blows harmonica on two tracks--at a club in Portland, Oregon, the new material here stretches far afield from the comparatively traditional songs on his first two albums, LEAD ME ON and ROLL AWAY THE STONE. The lengthy "House Carpenter" opens the album with some stinging acoustic slide guitar and Phelps' oblique yet evocative lyrics, followed by the pretty folk ballad "River Rat Jimmy." The album continues to alternate between Delta-style country blues like the John Lee Hookerish "Piece by Piece" and folkier songs including a lovely version of Leadbelly's classic "Goodnight Irene" that somehow finds something new in this much-recorded tune. The newfound folk influence is an intriguing new direction for Phelps.Entertainment Weekly (8/13/99, p.77) - "...Phelps serves up heaping portions of gritty warmth and tangy/twangy. He's a self-contained, flesh-and-blood music machine, and an important new voice in the slide guitar world." - Rating: A-
Q (9/99, p.112) - 3 stars (out of 5) - "...Eerily translucent voice and guitar entwine, mastering the art of subtle embellishment while hopping invisibly between rhythmic chugs and single-note showers."
CMJ (7/26/99, p.24) - "...picks his strings attentively to achieve a warped, folksy sound that's as familiar and comforting as the crackle of a home hearth fire..."
Mojo (Publisher) (5/01, p.104) - "...Unadorned, masterly, convincing folk-blues..."