Phil Phillips

Born John Phillip Baptiste on 14 March 1931 in Lake Charles, Louisiana, USA, Phillips composed his sole hit “Sea Of Love” in 1958 in hopes of winning over a prospective girlfriend. Through an introduction to producer George Khoury, the track was cut at Goldband Recording Studio and issued on Khoury’s own imprint under the name Phil Phillips And The Twilights. Although the intended romantic effect never materialized, strong regional sales prompted Mercury Records to assume national distribution, sending the ballad to number 2 on the Billboard pop chart and number 1 on the R&B chart. The recording epitomized the “swamp-rock” style then emerging from the Cajun communities along southern Louisiana’s bayous, a sound also associated with Rod Bernard, Tommy McLain, and Johnnie Allan. Over the ensuing years Phillips cut additional material without further chart success. Decades later the song resurfaced in covers by Marty Wilde, who reached number 3 in the UK in 1959, and by Del Shannon; the Honeydrippers—a rock supergroup featuring Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, and Nile Rodgers of Chic—nearly duplicated the original’s impact by peaking at number 3 in the United States in 1985. In 1989 Phillips’ own version served as the title theme for the Al Pacino film Sea of Love. During the late 1980s he worked as a disc jockey in Louisiana.