|
Sam Phillips
Martinis and Bikinis (1994)
Time Magazine said something to
the effect that the ghost of John Lennon, if it had taken up habitation in any particular
songwriter, it must have settled in Sam Phillips. Sam's been my musical hero since
The Turning marked her bold departure from the propagandistic signatures of Contemporary
Christian Music and established her as a visionary rock poet. T-Bone Burnett's work
with her seems to have found its strengths in this record after the experimentation and
eccentric style hopping of Cruel Inventions. Today it sounds as lasting and true in
its explorations of faith (via C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton), the embarrassment of
right-wing evangelical politics ("Baby I Can't Please You"), and the tightrope
between law and freedom that each spiritual pilgrim struggles to walk ("I Need
Love", "Strawberry Road").
Outstanding tracks: Every track is outstanding.
Sample her banner song "I Need Love", as well as "Signposts"
and "Circle of Fire".
Jeffrey's Sum-Up: A Masterpiece
Sam Phillips
Omnipop (It's Just
A Flesh Wound, Lambchop) (1996)
If "Martinis and
Bikinis" was her rock masterpiece, this is at least her bravest experiment. The songs
here, while leaping erratically from style to style, riddle and tease the listener with
meanings and often-disturbing implications. Throughout, the album works as a piece, joined
loosely by common thematic threads — falling, faith, fear, "zeroes" —
to keep us turning it this way and that for better understanding.
Outstanding tracks: "Animals on
Wheels", "Your Hands", "Power World"
Jeffrey's Sum-Up: Excellent
Sam Phillips
The
Turning (1986)
Sam Phillips, the elusive, enigmatic court jester of modern rock,
has just re-released her
long-out-of-print masterpiece... "The Turning". (It hits the shelves September
30th.) If you haven't discovered her yet, this is the place to start. This is the album
when Christian pop's superstar Leslie Phillips cast off the costume of the pretty pop star
and began the honest visionary we now call Sam Phillips.
"The Turning" stands out from the rest of the Christian pop albums released
in the 80's in its personal, unapologetic honesty. Leslie's lyrics were bold and
questioning as she struggled with issues of doubt and disillusionment; she sounded like
the King David of the dark psalms rather than the cheerleader of the youth-group rock
concerts. The material bothered some of those responsible for selling records to the
Contemporary Christian Music audience, because it was not easy to understand in the first
listen, it dealt with troubles instead of happiness, and it admitted that, in Jesus, not
all our questions are immediately answered. Where were the praise choruses? Leslie began
feeling pressure to play a character rather than write from her heart. Rather than conform
to the image of a happy Christian cheerleader, she chose to be an honest poet. Her
popularity plummeted (Christian music audiences walked out on her first tour for "The
Turning") but a beautiful thing began to happen; the heart of an intelligent young
woman seeking to grow in relationship with God was set free.
Her heartfelt plea for permission to sing of her questions and doubts can be heard
reverberating between the lines of her evocative poetry. In "Expectations",
anger and the desire for escape are clear:
You lock me up with your expectations
You strip my heart with your accusations
Loosen the pressure you choke me with
I can't breathe
Let me pull down your high ideals to sweet earth, honest and wide....
And yet, her lasting trust in her Lord is clear too, as in the assurances of
"Carry You" ("When the water's too high I will carry you....") In
"Down", she falls like a priest in the holy of holies before the realization of
her God's glory:
I hit the dirt when I see who you really are
Cut to the heart I am broken up like a wound
Shattered convictions I thought were reflecting you
Down comes my religion likes leaves on winter trees...
You come to me with your love on hands and knees....
Songs like "Answers Don't Come Easy" do not offer simple platitudes or
promises that everything will turn out all right. Hard, serious stuff from an artist in an
industry that seemed to endorse only upbeat, happy-faced praise pop songs.
Making the controversial "crossover" jump to a secular label, and changing
her name, "Sam Phillips" has become one of pop's most intellectually
challenging, eccentric, musically inventive heroines. She's become a cult hero for artists
whose work manifests both the glorious highs and the dark, troubling lows of the pilgrim's
spiritual progress.
"The Turning" was Leslie's farewell to Christian music, and the first album
produced by T-bone Burnett, the man who ushered Counting Crows and The Wallflowers to
greatness among countless other musicians, whom she married soon after.
In this album, her desire to transcend the confines of her industry is clear, her
passion to glorify and communicate with her God is expressed with feverish intensity, and
her questions are as numerous as her affirmations. It just might be the most challenging,
controversial, and sincerely-heartfelt album ever released on a Christian record label.
A fiercely loyal fan base has followed her all the way, and copies of this out-of-print
classic have frequently been auctioned over the Internet fan club mailing list for as much
as $100, maybe more. It is almost a weekly event that a new name joins the list to ask
where they might find a copy.
Now, "The Turning" is re-released as a Sam Phillips album, and appropriately
so, for under that name she has impressively revealed her true colors.
Outstanding tracks: "Answers
Don't Come Easy", "The Turning", "Libera Me", "Beating Heart", "River of Love",
"Carry You"
Jeffrey's Sum-Up: A
Masterpiece
|
