Biography
Emerging amid the singer/songwriter wave of the early 1970s, Shawn Phillips ranks among the most intriguing and elusive figures in that era. His mastery of instruments equaled his prowess as a vocalist and composer, enabling him to distinguish himself while cultivating a devoted audience. By declining to confine his sound—which fluidly incorporates folk, rock, jazz, funk, progressive, pop, electro, classical, and global folk elements—to suit external expectations, he preserved his loyal following yet never attained the broad fame his gifts appeared to deserve. Although he cut sides for Columbia in the mid-1960s and contributed to Donovan’s sessions from that time, it was his ten largely unclassifiable A&M albums of the 1970s—Contribution, Second Contribution, Faces, Bright White, and Spaced among them—that cemented his standing for limitless creativity and instrumental command. Phillips functioned as a musical chameleon whose command of the twelve-string guitar paired with a four-octave vocal span both puzzled reviewers and connected with listeners. He consistently drew precisely the tone or texture required from any instrument at hand as well as from studio and stage collaborators. After settling in Italy and maintaining a low profile through most of the 1980s and 1990s—during which he toured, composed, and collaborated with musicians beyond the United States—he eventually relocated to post-apartheid South Africa and resumed active recording in the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century, sounding as though he had never paused.
Born in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1943, Phillips is the son of best-selling spy novelist Philip Atlee, whose travels took the family across the globe, including periods in the South Pacific. After encountering “Malaguena” on piano, he began playing guitar at age seven; by twelve he was mastering the progressions to Carl Perkins tunes. His musical horizons extended well beyond rock and roll. Family journeys allowed him to reside in nearly every region of the world, Tahiti included, absorbing local sounds wherever he lived. Returning to Texas as a teenager with classical training yet an affinity for Jimmy Reed, Ike & Tina Turner, and other blues and R&B performers, Phillips served briefly in the Navy, then returned to Texas before moving to California and working the early-1960s folk circuit.
His debut single—an over-produced Columbia rendition of Bob Gibson’s “Frankie and Johnnie”—was followed by the albums I’m a Loner and Shawn, neither of which found commercial traction. Phillips traveled to England, where he performed and co-wrote with Donovan in a professional association that later sparked dispute. In 1970s interviews he asserted co-authorship of “Season of the Witch” and a substantial share of the material that appeared on Sunshine Superman, although he received only one official credit, for “Little Tin Soldier” on Fairytale. While based in England his creative range expanded further, aided in part by various controlled substances.
After expulsion from England for performing without a work permit, Phillips attempted residence in Paris before moving to Italy and settling in the fishing village of Positano. By the late 1960s his instrumental command had grown to encompass multiple guitar types as well as the Indian sitar. After several years of study he concluded he had begun too late to master the sitar in its traditional idiom and instead turned to developing his own approach on the instrument.
In 1968 he arrived in London with plans for a trilogy of albums and recorded much of the material with Traffic members Steve Winwood, Chris Wood, and Jim Capaldi. No label would finance such an ambitious project by an unknown artist, so the tapes remained unissued for more than two years until Phillips reached A&M Records. Producer Jonathon Weston heard the recordings and opted to issue an edited version.
That release became his A&M debut Contribution, which moved freely from up-tempo folk-rock such as “Man Hole Covered Wagon” to introspective quasi-classical guitar works like “L Ballade” and pieces combining sitar and acoustic guitar such as “Withered Roses.” The album earned favorable notices, yet it was Phillips’s first U.S. tour, tied to the follow-up Second Contribution in late 1971, that drew widespread critical attention. Writers for the New York Times and other outlets expressed unrestrained admiration for his facility across electric and acoustic six- and twelve-string guitars and sitar, his three-octave vocal span from baritone to counter-tenor, and his songwriting. He was among the few singer-songwriters to perform double-neck six- and twelve-string guitars—standard in progressive and metal bands—on club stages such as New York’s Bottom Line, fully exploring the hybrid instrument’s possibilities.
Reviewers praised Phillips’s unconventional lyrics, evocative melodies, formidable musicianship, and the scope of his recordings. An American by birth yet raised internationally, he brought a foreigner’s fresh perspective to the music of his homeland together with a seasoned traveler’s appreciation of world traditions, free of conventional constraints. He moved without friction among jazz, folk, pop, and classical textures, seamlessly shifting from a progressive mood piece scored for a fifty-piece orchestra to an R&B-driven track propelled by electric guitar and back again. “The Ballad of Casey Deiss,” from Second Contribution, exemplified this approach: a song recounting a friend’s death by lightning, arranged for acoustic and electric guitars, vibraphone, orchestral horns, and layered vocals.
A third album, Collaboration, appeared next, followed by another tour, then Faces, Bright White, and Furthermore. Conductor and arranger Paul Buckmaster served as Phillips’s key collaborator; Buckmaster had created the choral arrangement for the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and worked on Elton John’s first four albums. On the road Phillips often performed solo, surrounded by half a dozen guitars, or with a single accompanist, keyboardist Peter Robinson, sharing bills with comedian Albert Brooks, singer-songwriter Wendy Waldman, and Seals & Crofts.
Despite critical acclaim, Phillips never attained major commercial success. He avoided crafting an overtly commercial sound, choosing instead to write songs that, in his words, “make you feel different from the way you felt before you started listening,” primarily love songs and sonic landscapes. His mid- and late-1970s experiments with electronic keyboards also positioned him as a jazz-funk innovator, although that contribution, like many others, received recognition only later.
He completed nine albums for A&M before signing with RCA in 1978 for Transcendence, which combined his guitars with a sixty-piece symphony orchestra and members of Herbie Hancock’s band under the co-production of arranger and conductor Michael Kamen. Phillips also contributed to film scores by Manos Hadjidakis and appeared in the motion picture Run with the Wind. In 1983 he recorded Beyond Here Be Dragons, an ambitious project featuring producer Michael Hoenig, bassist Alphonso Johnson, guitarist Caleb Quaye, keyboardist J. Peter Robinson, and drummer Ralph Humphrey; the album remained unreleased for five years until Chameleon issued it in 1988 to the pleasure of longtime fans.
With nearly twenty albums to his credit since the mid-1960s, Phillips maintains audiences in America, Europe, and Japan and has appeared at various world-music festivals. A cult figure whose peers include Van Dyke Parks and, in some respects, Leonard Cohen—though Cohen’s profile benefited from prior recognition as a poet and author—he continues to occupy an enigmatic place in the musical landscape. Demand for his work in the 1990s prompted A&M to release a best-of compilation in 1992 containing new liner notes by Phillips and one previously unissued track. In 1995 Polygram South Africa issued the anthology Another Contribution.
By then Phillips had become a firefighter and emergency medical technician in Texas. In 1994 the Canadian label Imagine released the new studio album The Truth If It Kills, produced by Michel Le Francois. In 1998 Wounded Bird reissued eight catalog titles. Having relocated to South Africa in 2000, where he worked as a paramedic with the National Sea Rescue Institute, Phillips stated in interviews that he had largely stepped away from music between 1994 and 2003. Nevertheless, Universal issued No Category that year, mixing new and unreleased material with previously released songs. A Gott Discs boxed set paired Contribution and Second Contribution in 2004, while other catalog titles gradually reappeared on various labels. On June 6, 2006, the Nashville Symphony Orchestra performed the nine-movement suite Disturbing Horizons: Events in the Life of a Prince drawn from Phillips’s compositions.
The two-disc set Living Contribution: Live at Kirstenbosch Gardens appeared on South Africa’s Feet Music label in 2007. In 2009 Hux released the long-sought Live at the BBC documenting a 1973 performance, and in 2011 Faces from 1972 was reissued. In 2013 Talking Elephant brought out Rumplestiltskin’s Resolve, originally released in 1976; the following year Varese Sarabande issued Infinity, a collection of unreleased 1989 recordings. The twenty-track double-disc Perspective, comprising songs written and recorded since the 2000s, mostly in South Africa, was released by Talking Elephant in 2015 and was followed in 2016 by a reissue of the 1978 album Transcendence.
Born in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1943, Phillips is the son of best-selling spy novelist Philip Atlee, whose travels took the family across the globe, including periods in the South Pacific. After encountering “Malaguena” on piano, he began playing guitar at age seven; by twelve he was mastering the progressions to Carl Perkins tunes. His musical horizons extended well beyond rock and roll. Family journeys allowed him to reside in nearly every region of the world, Tahiti included, absorbing local sounds wherever he lived. Returning to Texas as a teenager with classical training yet an affinity for Jimmy Reed, Ike & Tina Turner, and other blues and R&B performers, Phillips served briefly in the Navy, then returned to Texas before moving to California and working the early-1960s folk circuit.
His debut single—an over-produced Columbia rendition of Bob Gibson’s “Frankie and Johnnie”—was followed by the albums I’m a Loner and Shawn, neither of which found commercial traction. Phillips traveled to England, where he performed and co-wrote with Donovan in a professional association that later sparked dispute. In 1970s interviews he asserted co-authorship of “Season of the Witch” and a substantial share of the material that appeared on Sunshine Superman, although he received only one official credit, for “Little Tin Soldier” on Fairytale. While based in England his creative range expanded further, aided in part by various controlled substances.
After expulsion from England for performing without a work permit, Phillips attempted residence in Paris before moving to Italy and settling in the fishing village of Positano. By the late 1960s his instrumental command had grown to encompass multiple guitar types as well as the Indian sitar. After several years of study he concluded he had begun too late to master the sitar in its traditional idiom and instead turned to developing his own approach on the instrument.
In 1968 he arrived in London with plans for a trilogy of albums and recorded much of the material with Traffic members Steve Winwood, Chris Wood, and Jim Capaldi. No label would finance such an ambitious project by an unknown artist, so the tapes remained unissued for more than two years until Phillips reached A&M Records. Producer Jonathon Weston heard the recordings and opted to issue an edited version.
That release became his A&M debut Contribution, which moved freely from up-tempo folk-rock such as “Man Hole Covered Wagon” to introspective quasi-classical guitar works like “L Ballade” and pieces combining sitar and acoustic guitar such as “Withered Roses.” The album earned favorable notices, yet it was Phillips’s first U.S. tour, tied to the follow-up Second Contribution in late 1971, that drew widespread critical attention. Writers for the New York Times and other outlets expressed unrestrained admiration for his facility across electric and acoustic six- and twelve-string guitars and sitar, his three-octave vocal span from baritone to counter-tenor, and his songwriting. He was among the few singer-songwriters to perform double-neck six- and twelve-string guitars—standard in progressive and metal bands—on club stages such as New York’s Bottom Line, fully exploring the hybrid instrument’s possibilities.
Reviewers praised Phillips’s unconventional lyrics, evocative melodies, formidable musicianship, and the scope of his recordings. An American by birth yet raised internationally, he brought a foreigner’s fresh perspective to the music of his homeland together with a seasoned traveler’s appreciation of world traditions, free of conventional constraints. He moved without friction among jazz, folk, pop, and classical textures, seamlessly shifting from a progressive mood piece scored for a fifty-piece orchestra to an R&B-driven track propelled by electric guitar and back again. “The Ballad of Casey Deiss,” from Second Contribution, exemplified this approach: a song recounting a friend’s death by lightning, arranged for acoustic and electric guitars, vibraphone, orchestral horns, and layered vocals.
A third album, Collaboration, appeared next, followed by another tour, then Faces, Bright White, and Furthermore. Conductor and arranger Paul Buckmaster served as Phillips’s key collaborator; Buckmaster had created the choral arrangement for the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and worked on Elton John’s first four albums. On the road Phillips often performed solo, surrounded by half a dozen guitars, or with a single accompanist, keyboardist Peter Robinson, sharing bills with comedian Albert Brooks, singer-songwriter Wendy Waldman, and Seals & Crofts.
Despite critical acclaim, Phillips never attained major commercial success. He avoided crafting an overtly commercial sound, choosing instead to write songs that, in his words, “make you feel different from the way you felt before you started listening,” primarily love songs and sonic landscapes. His mid- and late-1970s experiments with electronic keyboards also positioned him as a jazz-funk innovator, although that contribution, like many others, received recognition only later.
He completed nine albums for A&M before signing with RCA in 1978 for Transcendence, which combined his guitars with a sixty-piece symphony orchestra and members of Herbie Hancock’s band under the co-production of arranger and conductor Michael Kamen. Phillips also contributed to film scores by Manos Hadjidakis and appeared in the motion picture Run with the Wind. In 1983 he recorded Beyond Here Be Dragons, an ambitious project featuring producer Michael Hoenig, bassist Alphonso Johnson, guitarist Caleb Quaye, keyboardist J. Peter Robinson, and drummer Ralph Humphrey; the album remained unreleased for five years until Chameleon issued it in 1988 to the pleasure of longtime fans.
With nearly twenty albums to his credit since the mid-1960s, Phillips maintains audiences in America, Europe, and Japan and has appeared at various world-music festivals. A cult figure whose peers include Van Dyke Parks and, in some respects, Leonard Cohen—though Cohen’s profile benefited from prior recognition as a poet and author—he continues to occupy an enigmatic place in the musical landscape. Demand for his work in the 1990s prompted A&M to release a best-of compilation in 1992 containing new liner notes by Phillips and one previously unissued track. In 1995 Polygram South Africa issued the anthology Another Contribution.
By then Phillips had become a firefighter and emergency medical technician in Texas. In 1994 the Canadian label Imagine released the new studio album The Truth If It Kills, produced by Michel Le Francois. In 1998 Wounded Bird reissued eight catalog titles. Having relocated to South Africa in 2000, where he worked as a paramedic with the National Sea Rescue Institute, Phillips stated in interviews that he had largely stepped away from music between 1994 and 2003. Nevertheless, Universal issued No Category that year, mixing new and unreleased material with previously released songs. A Gott Discs boxed set paired Contribution and Second Contribution in 2004, while other catalog titles gradually reappeared on various labels. On June 6, 2006, the Nashville Symphony Orchestra performed the nine-movement suite Disturbing Horizons: Events in the Life of a Prince drawn from Phillips’s compositions.
The two-disc set Living Contribution: Live at Kirstenbosch Gardens appeared on South Africa’s Feet Music label in 2007. In 2009 Hux released the long-sought Live at the BBC documenting a 1973 performance, and in 2011 Faces from 1972 was reissued. In 2013 Talking Elephant brought out Rumplestiltskin’s Resolve, originally released in 1976; the following year Varese Sarabande issued Infinity, a collection of unreleased 1989 recordings. The twenty-track double-disc Perspective, comprising songs written and recorded since the 2000s, mostly in South Africa, was released by Talking Elephant in 2015 and was followed in 2016 by a reissue of the 1978 album Transcendence.
Albums
