Blues: Kelly Joe Phelps' Roll Away the Stone

Berkeley, California. Birthday shopping spree in a used CD store courtesy of my parents who were visiting us at the time. While my parents and wife tried to entertain themselves, I scoured those stacks looking for the best way to add to my music collection.

There—something I was never even looking for—Kelly Joe Phelps’ Roll Away the Stone. I knew him as a great slide guitarist on Greg Brown’s Further In. But here was Phelps on his own.

I ended up with more CDs in my hands than my parents really meant to buy. I had to deliberate about which ones to put back. I never even thought about sending Phelps back to the rack. I hadn’t heard his solo work. I had never heard him sing. However, with his guitar work, I knew there was the potential of an outstanding album in my hands.

(By the way, never assume that because it’s in the used stacks that it must suck. Someone returned it because they didn’t get the music, had poor taste, or were just moving and needed the cash).

When I got home, I encountered the usual debate—which CD to listen to first. Sometimes I’m patient and just scan a CD, getting a quick preview of what I now own. I don’t remember whether Phelps was first or last, but the opening line is one that stays with me, “Early one morning here/I look out across a worn out plain.” Then the guitar—dobro slide—incredible.

Phelps takes his deep voice and uses it like whole other layer on top of the guitar. The guitar and voice form a Gospel choir of sorts on this collection of traditional and original songs revolving around Christ and the Resurrection—an Easter album to be sure.

Jesus said that He was going ahead of us to prepare a room for each us in His Father’s mansion, and when I die, that’s where I want to be. Some days when I’m going through something difficult, that longing to be there is intense. Thanks to Kelly Joe Phelps that longing to be in heaven has a melody and some pretty intense guitar playing on the song, “Go There.”

Even as his newer material has moved away from the Gospel songs, his blues are infused with both the deep need in our hearts and the hope of faith which we have despite our circumstances. Even in the most desperate stories on shine-eyed mister zen, the guitar work constantly works against the dirge, the funeral march, the darkness, the death. You can’t hear the picking or slide and not feel as if there is another day, there is hope beyond this life.

The lyric may be coming from the depths of sorrow like Psalm 13:1, “How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever?/How long will you hide your face from me?” But the guitar points ahead to the enduring faith in God’s love, as in the end of Psalm 13, “But I trust in your unfailing love;/my heart rejoices in your salvation./I will sing to the LORD,/for he has been good to me.”

For more about the connection between the blues and the Gospel, take a look at a sermon I wrote a few years ago.

For more, you can check out the Official Webpage or a fansite which has a great collection of lyrics.