Emmett Kelly

Last month I wrote about Corner Man (Empty Cellar), the fantastic recent album from Chicago’s Cairo Gang, in a preview for a show they were doing at the Empty Bottle. Generally the group consists of guitarist, singer, and songwriter Emmett Kelly and anyone who happens to be playing with him, but of late he’s developed a strong, steady working band, as proved by the amazing set I saw. In my preview I referred to the album as the follow-up to an eponymous 2006 effort made for Narnack Records; happily, I was mistaken. While digging around for additional info on the project I noticed a recording titled Twyxt Wyrd, which was released in a very limited CD run in 2007 and issued in a slightly larger LP edition in 2010. I falsely assumed it was some kind of stopgap minor release, but this week I was corrected.