Country blues is intimate, poetic, soul-searching stuff.
Kelly Joe Phelps plays acoustic country blues. His was a musical family residing in the small town of Sumner, where Kelly Joe's earliest musical influences came from neighboring radio stations, and the country and gospel music he learned from his family. He first studied piano at the age of eight, taking up guitar, drums and bass in his teenage years. At the age of 17, Kelly Joe began playing with local jazz musicians. He found musical refuge in the sounds of Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Miles Davis, which helps to explain the underpinning of emotion and creativity in his guitar arrangements.