Stacy Phillips can do pretty miraculous things with a slide and a resonator guitar or a dobro. He makes the thing sing, squeezes out all kinds of expressive slurs and glides, and yet his tone is precise and clean. He can breeze from bluegrass to Hawaiian to jazzy Western swing and on into klezmer.
Phillips, who lives in New Haven, plays regularly around Connecticut in a variety of settings. For this rare show, Phillips teams up with a couple old friends who also happen to be virtuosos of string music — Andy Statman on mandolin and Tony Trischka on banjo — as Stacy Phillips and His Bluegrass Characters.
If you go in for expert acoustic music that honors tradition and yet isn’t afraid plow new ground, this is a show to pencil in on the calendar.
Stacy Phillips and His Bluegrass Characters perform at Ballroom at the Outer Space, 295 Treadwell St., Hamden, Tuesday, May 31, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 and $20. Information: 203-288-6400, theouterspace.net
