Shawn Phillips

Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 day of show (plus applicable service charges).

Shawn Phillips is one of most fascinating and enigmatic musicians to come out of the early-'70s singer/songwriter boom. The mere fact that he was a musician as much as a singer and songwriter made him stand out, and helped him attract a dedicated following. His refusal to shape his music — which crosses between folk-rock, jazz, progressive, pop, and classical — to anyone else's expectations allows him to hold onto a large and dedicated cult following, without ever achieving the stardom that his talent seemed to merit.

Phillips was born on Feb. 3rd 1943 in Fort Worth, TX, the son of best-selling spy novelist James Atlee Phillips, (Pseudonym Philip Atlee), who moved the family around the world at various times. After hearing his mother play "Malaguena" at the piano, he took up the guitar at age six, and by the time he was 8, he was playing the chords to Carl Perkins songs. Phillips' musical experience transcended rock & roll, however. In the course of his family's travels, he got to live in almost every corner of the globe, including Tahiti, and absorbed the music that surrounded him wherever he was living. He returned to Texas in his teens, with no training in classical music other than hearing his Grandmother play Tchaikovsky on the record player, while his Grandfather listened to Hank Williams on the radio, but also with a love for performers like Jimmy Reed and Ike & Tina Turner, and many other blues and R&B performers. He did a hitch in the Navy, and then went back to Texas before retreating to California, where he played around the early-'60s folk circuit with Tim Hardin, arrested and jailed with Lenny Bruce, including a stint in Calgary, Canada where he showed an aspiring musician/waitress, Joni Mitchell, his guitar techniques.

While living in England, he gave George Harrison tips on the sitar and sang back up on the Beatles song "Lovely Rita." His A&M debut album, Contribution, ranged freely between up tempo folk-rock and introspective quasi-classical guitar pieces. The album got positive reviews, but it was when Phillips embarked on his first U.S. tour, in conjunction with his next album, Second Contribution, late in 1971, that he was discovered by much of the press. Critics in the New York Times and other publications displayed unbridled awe at Phillips' prowess on a range of instruments, including electric and acoustic six- and 12-string guitars and the sitar, and his singing range, a full five octaves from baritone to counter-tenor, as well as his songwriting. He was one of the few singer/songwriters to play double-necked six- and 12-string guitars (a standard feature of progressive and metal bands) on-stage, in intimate locales such as New York's Bottom Line, and to test the full range of the hybrid instrument.

Writers lavished praise on Phillips for his unusual lyrics, haunting melodies, daunting musicianship, and the ambition of his records. He was a complete enigma, American-born but raised internationally, with a foreigner's keen appreciation for all of the music of his homeland and a seasoned traveler's love of the world's music, with none of the usual limits on his thinking about music. He slid between jazz, folk, pop, and classical sounds — it was nothing for Phillips to segue from a progressive-style mood piece with a 50-piece orchestra into an R&B-based number driven by his electric guitar, and back again. "The Ballad of Casey Deiss," from Second Contribution, was a case in point, a song about a friend who died when he was struck by lightning, scored for acoustic guitars, electric guitars, vibraphone, and the horn section of a full orchestra, as well as multi-layered vocals. A third album, Collaboration, followed, along with another tour, and then Faces, Bright White, and Furthermore.

Phillips never achieved major stardom, despite his critical accolades. He never courted an obvious commercial sound, preferring to write songs that, as he put it, "make you feel different from the way you felt before you started listening," primarily love songs and sonic landscapes. At 67, Phillips' career spans nearly 50 years. Today, he is working on a new CD, and continues as a successful touring artist. He resides in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, with his wife and son, where he continues his passion for public service work as an active sea-going crew member with the National Sea Rescue Institute.

The evening will start with a live interview by John and Viv from Art of the Song Creativity Radio, followed by a full concert performance.