Album Notes

Produced and engineered by renowned singer/guitarist Kelly Joe Phelps and recorded in just two days, Songs For Devon Sproule captures the full spontaneity and power of Paul Curreri's incredible live performances. "I guess that's what happens when you record an entire album in four hours versus nine months," says Paul. The result is a freewheeling collection of stories, spirited wordplay and stunning finger-style guitar work. A record in the old, true sense, Songs For Devon Sproule unfolds with each listen. From the lilting "Greenville," to the glimmering "Beneath A Crozet Trestle Bridge," which features Kelly Joe Phelps on slide guitar, to his covers of Fred McDowell's "Louise" and the Sam Coslow penned standard "Tomorrow Night," Songs for Devon Sproule moves along with a deceptively gentle energy, careening from breezy playfulness to sudden longing in a beat. The first time I saw him play I was just blown away," says producer Kelly Joe Phelps. "Paul's songs were incredible, the guitar playing was amazing. It's just undeniable stuff." Phelps soon set to work booking Curreri to open as many of his shows as possible, even flying the singer across the country for gigs. "I'll do anything to expose him to people and people to him, because I think the music is just so good." When the time came to record Songs For Devon Sproule, Phelps offered his home studio in Vancouver, WA, where he had recorded his own solo Rykodisc CDs Roll Away The Stone and Shine Eyed Mister Zen. "I was glad to hear that he wanted to record in the most straight forward way, just guitar and vocals. So often during recording other things tend to get in the way. We set things up with as little extraneous gear as possible and just went to it." Most songs required only one or two takes and the entire project was completed in one weekend. Named for his companion and fellow artist Devon Sproule, the disc is at once Curreri's tribute to the woman he loves and the traveling musician life they share. "I have at times wanted to change the title or thought maybe I should," says Paul, laughing. "At one point I thought of calling it More Songs For Devon Sproule." Throughout, the record celebrates and explores the ways in which relationships transform and shape us and all we do. "Devon has had such an enormous influence on me," he says, "who I am as a person and the way I work." In "Night Jet Trails" Curreri sings of this connection, "If every axe handle broadcasts its designer/Then my prints are on yours, and yours are on mine./Keep swinging that work till your work shirt seams split/I'll bust out, fresh-hatcheted, and finish it." Exciting and individual, Paul's work is nourished by, but not slavish to, the different traditions from which it rises. "When people started calling me a 'Country Blues' songwriter, that was the first genre that I actually didn't mind -- only because I really enjoy Country Blues and it has a far more specific connotation than, say, 'Folk.' Some of my favorite musicians, individual as they are, get classified as 'Country Blues' artists," he says, listing Dave Van Ronk, Mississippi John Hurt, Reverend Gary Davis, Skip James and Blind Willie McTell. "In the end what unites them," he explains, "is that when they play, it seems a perfect, clear representation in sound of what they are feeling. They are smart enough to write well, ambitious enough to play well, and brave enough to be in tune with themselves. And really digging down, concentrating hard enough to access what they're feeling, they somehow bring it out via their mouths and hands." This is precisely what comes across in Paul's own work on record and on stage. "Most of my songs have intros of a few bars or more before I start singing. So while those bars are rolling along, I do my damndest to scan my heart and brain, trying to hear and feel where this piece of music and these lyrics came from and, more importantly, see where I stand now, feel about it at this very