Corinne West - At age 15, Corinne grabbed her guitar and left home to live in a converted old yellow school-bus occupied by nomadic artists and activists. Nothing in particular was wrong at home but she felt things might be really right somewhere else. Corinne was on and off that bus for a few years, ending up back in California in a remote mountain town, making her home in a cabin that had been built by her great grandfather. She has been carrying her guitar ever since.
Depending on the listener, Corinne's music might get called "roots," "Americana", or even "progressive folk". There are echoes of rural towns, honky-tonks, roads traveled, and roads less traveled. Listen more closely and there are traces of Appalachia and Ireland, the Opry and the Apollo, and somehow the pure elements of a starry night.
Kelly Joe Phelps - After a decade and a half of traveling the world - occasionally with a band, but usually alone with a guitar - Kelly Joe Phelps' rear view might have fallen off the windshield. Western Bell, his eighth full-length album, could be the soundtrack to his first mirror-cleaning sit-down in a long while. Some stuff winds up on the mantle (the photo of the Montana ranch where he helped herd cattle); some stuff winds up tattooed on his arms (a whole lot of names, or the pirate that says, "Be Kind").
There are only a handful of truly seminal solo guitar recordings in circulation, ones that forever transport both audience and genre. Add one more to the list. Here is Kelly Joe Phelps' Western Bell.
8pm. $10 advance / $12 day of show. Tuesday, April 20, 2010
