Fusion 45: If His Name Had Been McCartney…
I’d never heard of Shawn Phillips before yesterday. I was tooling around a site written mostly in Italian when I came across his now out-of-print record called Collaboration. The cover looked interesting; it had a sort of Leon Russell-lives-with-the-gypsies look. So with nothing to lose, like in the 70′s when records were cheap enough to buy based on the cover alone, I clicked a couple of times and brought the music home to my desktop.
According to his Wiki, Phillips has associated with some pretty heavy hitters: he’s counted Donovan, Clapton and Winwood among his proteges and still works with one of the great arrangers in pop music, Paul Buckmaster. Believe it or not, he sang on Lovely Rita (Meter Maid), was cast as Jesus in the original staging of Jesus Christ Superstar (a role he turned down) and had 3 singles make it into the Billboard Top 40.
According to his wesbite he stills tours regularly and, as recently as July, reunited the players who worked with him on Collaboration.
Yet, he’s largely unknown.
So what about the music? Well, the simple fact is that, if his name were McCartney and he’d created this record, it would have been hailed as a brilliant work of art. There are high-brow acoustic jaunts, weird screaming rages, pastoral English Breakfast scenes, strings and horns flying about (with the Buckmaster influence clear as day). It’s all of his protege’s music and then some, wrapped up in a carriage ride into the country.
All the freak-folkers that the girls are fawning over today would’ve probably done the same thing 30 years ago for Phillips.
(Note: This is a pretty clean copy but the digital snipping between cuts was a little sloppy…)
Shawn Phillips was big in South Africa in the late 70′s and 80′s. Faces and Second Contribution got our attention. His thought-provoking lyrics combined with an amazing vocal range set him apart from the mainstream. No way he was drinking the recording industry Kool-Aid. Rodriguez is another musician who made it big in South Africa but not in the US. In the 70′s, you couldn’t walk into a bar without hearing something from Cold Fact. Rogriguez is not in the same class as Shawn Phillips but his music had an anti-establishment appeal that allowed one to feel like a rebel in a regulated society.
Seek out his Second Contribution album, which features one of the longest song titles I’ve ever seen. Great tune too. Our man now lives in South Africa, where hewas quite big back in the day (a bit like Rodriguez).
Yes, Second Contribution is an extraordinary piece of work. I also swoon in front of “We,” a track from his Faces album that was released as a single and was utterly ignored by the public. (Their loss, not Phillips’.)
My sister turned me on to his music when we were teens, in the 1970′s, and I became a huge fan of his music, lyrics, and vocals. Truly unique artist. I couldn’t listen to him for years, after my albums wore out and then I didn’t have a turntable. When I could buy CDs and listen on the web, the songs were right there in my mind, as if I had heard them last week. I love the “Second Contribution” album – just bought the CD from amazon. I also love the “Do You Wonder” album – some great songs on it – every fall I think of “Looking at the Angel” lyrics: “And you know you hear the call when the leaves begin to fall and the melancholy’s fast approaching; but with the mountains so clear, you know another year has gone and nearly passed you by…..”
Don’t miss a chance to catch ANY of Shawn’s music. God speaks directly to us through Shawn’s lyrics, voice, instrumentation, etc. When Shawn performs solo or with other musicians, you cannot help but feel the fabulous depth of emotion (thought plus feeling) that Shawn places before us to feast upon, listen after listen after listen. I have been to 4 of his concerts, am a disciple (way beyond a mere fan), and want to invite him to Maui once I find a suitable venue here … although too few people still have any idea of who he is.
Shawn Phillips literally IS Bright White. His use of the English language apparently is “too challenging” for mainstream listeners, but for those of us who crave brilliant depth, we can listen forever and still hear new connections we hadn’t discovered before. Absolute genius, pure heaven … and yet, like me, he’s “just a man” doin’ his thing with health, love and clarity. Shawn, Arlo and company, THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH!