Vancouver, Washington - based guitarist, singer and songwriter Kelly Joe Phelps continues to expand the parameters of modern blues through his strong commitment to literary songs and his expressive- yet- simple guitar stylings. While casual listeners may call Phelps a bluesman, his playing is so fluid, dexterous and improvised that he has the soul of a jazz musician.
Phelps was raised in a music-loving household in Sumner, Washington, near Tacoma. The son of Seventh Day Adventist parents, Phelps' father was an air conditioning and refrigeration specialist and his mother worked as a housewife and Tupperware sales person.
"They didn't have a large record collection," he recalled in a 2000 interview, "but the influence from them musically was the fact that they played music, at home, almost daily." Phelps' parents didn't play music for religious reasons, but merely for an emotional / stress release.
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