By James Porter
Christopher Paul Stelling is no stranger to the Chicago area. On Friday, May 10, this Atlanta-based singer-songwriter will be blessing the stage of Robert’s Westside. Although his guitar picking has been compared to Leo Kottke and Rev, Gary Davis, and his vocals and lyrics have been linked with Woody Guthrie, he’s been doing it long enough that he’s grown into a recognizable personal sound. As Stelling himself says, “I have a ton of influences, but at a certain point, you’ve been doing it longer than you haven’t been doing it. i don’t know if I’m really looking for influences that same way, or if I’m just trying to challenge myself to just best myself in new and interesting ways. it doesn’t always mean write more; it sometimes means write less. it sometimes means be more concise. when you’re young, you can overcomplicate things.”
Ever since he recorded his first album (2012’s Songs Of Praise & Scorn) in a Kentucky funeral home, Stelling has blitzed the folk scene with a purpose, touring constantly. Through playing the US, UK and Europe, as well as opening for the diversified likes of Mavis Staples, the Devil Makes Three, and Ben Harper (who produced one of Stelling’s records), he has still retained an original voice.” Crediting the Delta blues and early country singers of the thirties and forties, Stelling claims that it’s just down to “me and my guitar. I’m just interested in how to make that really work. You see somebody with an acoustic guitar, a lot of them are doing a, quote, acoustic set because they don’t have a band. I’m not doing an ‘acoustic set.’ I’m doing my set. This is actually what I aspire to.”
Stelling has a full, three-handed guitar style that more than compensates for not having a band. Although he’s no stranger to playing music with others, the essence is still a singer-songwriter telling the story. However, he will change the scenery if he has to. “It’s just doing what I didn’t do last time that keeps me interested,” says Stelling.
The singer-guitarist is thankful, yet pragmatic about his career progress. “Nothing is a career maker except for you,” says Stelling. “Nothing guarantees anything anymore. We’re just not living in a world anymore where any one thing is the thing that’s gonna make or break your career.” To the singer-guitarist, it’s all about “your generosity, appreciation and pursuit of your craft. That’s it. I’ve known too many people that had too many great opportunities, and it’s like ‘here today, gone tomorrow.’ You gotta be committed to staying in it. Some people get lucky and get huge and good for them. That’s a whole different set of problems, right?,” he laughs.
He is equally sensible about his songwriting. ” There are no wrong answers,” he says. There are no right answers. You have to make yourself available to the process. If the process is gonna make itself available to you. Sometimes when you’re young, it feels like there’s the idea of the writer in the cafe sitting there staring out the window waiting for inspiration. I don’t know, man…when I was young i would sometimes just go walk around with a guitar case just to see what that felt like. Writing can be like that, too. Sometimes you’re waiting, sometimes you’re using prompts, sometimes you open up a book and point to a random page or a random word just to get yourself started, sometimes it all hits you fully formed while you’re walking down the street. So long as you’re not trying to convince yourself there’s one right way to do a thing, then you’re probably on the right path.”
So it’s probably safe to say that its Christopher Paul Stelling music at the end of the day.
“I’d like to think so,” he laughs. “Somebody else might disagree, but I’m the one living in this body!”
