Sam Phillips: Broken Circle

In August 2009, Sam Phillips launched her innovative Long Play project. Fans (like myself) paid a $52 subscription fee straight to the artist. No record company, no middle man. In return, we gained instant access to her creative process. Over the year, Long Play subscribers were able to download 5 digital EPs, one entire album, and a variety of bonus songs in various stages of completion.

If you did not participate in Long Play, you're in luck! Yesterday, Sam Phillips released a full-length album of songs from the project to the public. Solid State is now available on Sam Phillips' website in digital or physical CD format. In fact, you can get three free tracks just for signing up for her email list. And at the very least, you can watch this video from one of the new tracks.

Sam Phillips: Broken Circle

Blog Rerun: Sam Phillips, Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us

I'm taking a bit of a break from my blog for Thanksgiving break. Here's a rerun featuring a Sam Phillips song that remains one of my favorite songs of the decade. 

Sam Phillips: Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us (originally posted June 4, 2008)

The new Sam Phillips album is out! Normally, I would listen to the album straight through from start to finish, but this time I had to go straight to Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us. Alison Krauss and Robert Plant covered the song on Raising Sand, and if you remember, I was pretty wild about it. So I was dying to hear the Sam Phillips rendition.

It's always so interesting to hear how a writer interprets their own work. A poet, for instance, might put completely different emphasis on line breaks when reading their work outloud than I could have ever imagined in my head. Alison Krauss & Robert Plant's version of "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us" is dreamy, introspective, eerie, polished. Sam Phillips takes a completely different approach to her own work. In comparison, it's messy, rushed, untamed...all in the best of ways. The way Alison Krauss sings the song, Sister Rosetta's music comes to the singer like a strange gift from above, supernatural, beautiful, and detached. In Sam Phillips' version, the music is a down-to-earth personal revelation, a tangible refuge, a place of abandon and release.

Ok, off to listen to the rest of the album. Tune in for more gushing next week...

Alison Krauss & Robert Plant version:


Sam Phillips version:

Sam Phillips: A Piece of My Bright Side

Sam Phillips is giving away a brand new song, A Piece of My Bright Side to anyone who signs up for her mailing list. It's an upbeat little gem, and I definitely recommend heading over to download it.

She's also selling a limited edition handmade book with the same name. A collection of "Sam's favorite oddities, pictures, interview tour stuff & more," it looks like her signature quirkiness bound up, packaged, and signed. What fun! I ordered my copy last week.

Here's a link to my previous (and surprisingly copious) Sam Phillips posts in case you want to read and hear more.

Sam Phillips is a Creative Genius

If the title of this post isn't enough to warn you, I'll let you know there's a pretty good chance you're in for some fangirl gushing today. On Saturday, Kevin and I drove 2 1/2 hours down to the Somerville Theater to see Sam Phillips in concert. And was it worth the drive, you ask? Oh, do you *really* need to ask?

She started off the show with my two favorite songs. I mean, what are the odds? The first song was I Need Love from her 1994 album Martinis and Bikinis. It's the one with that phenomenal chorus:

I need love, not some sentimental prison
I need God, not the political church
I need fire, to melt this frozen sea inside me
I need love

And the second song was Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us, off her new album (and recently covered by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant). It was even more striking live, with the sounds of the drums and that crazy violinophone clamoring together over your head.

Which brings me to her band. Ted Reichman played accordian, keyboard, and guitar. Eric Gorfain played violinophone, banjo, a supercool little white electric guitar, and various other stringed instruments. And Jay Bellerose had the coolest drum set I think I have ever seen, equipped with a gigantic vintage wooden kick drum and what looked like a huge sack of bells strapped to his leg.

These guys seemed a little like a trio of mad scientists, each sitting in his corner tinkering away--sometimes holding back so much it left you breathless, and other times letting go with abandon that shook you to the bone. They were intense, and when Sam Phillips' haunting vocals cut through, the effect was extraordinary.

And did Sam Phillips' deliciously quirky personality come shining through? Oh, yes it did. On Shake It Down, the stage manager nonchalantly brought out a gigantic metal shovel for her to bang away on, nonplussed (like people do this in concerts every day). For Animals on Wheels, the band left the stage, leaving her alone, holding a tiny, tinny dictophone to the microphone for her piano accompaniment. Every once in a while, she would shake it to distort the sound before jumping back into the verse.

I have to admit, I got a little teared up during Don't Do Anything. It just hit me during that song that I have been listening consistently to Sam Phillips' voice since I was about 10 or 11 years old. I thought of all the things I've gone through (good and bad) while listening to her music, and how I essentially grew up (and am still growing up) with her lyrics in my head. To sit there in the front row, listening to her sing...well, what can I say? It was pretty profound.

Here are the Sam Phillips tour dates, so you won't miss a concert near you.

Here's a video of Sam Phillips' getting-ready-to-go-on-tour snapshots:

Season Finale!

So remember how I have these wicked Ticketmaster gift cards burning a hole in my pocket? Well, Kevin and I finally made our decision. Turns out, I had enough for two shows. So first, we're going to see my girl Sam Phillips.

And then...we're going to see our latest obsession live...woohoo!

Don't judge, ok? :) Season finale tonight!

I loved this one:

Sam Phillips: Don't Do Anything

So after listening to Sam Phillips' new album Don't Do Anything all week, I sat down this morning to compile a list of a couple highlights. After about a half hour's contemplation, I sheepishly realized that I had written down almost every song on the album. :)

For me, Can't Come Down and Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us are clear stand-outs, but the entire album has a lyrical, human, down-to-earth quirkiness to it. I love the raw energy that is pent-up in these songs...the boomy drums, the violins-run-rampant, the moments of old-timey swing and pop.

What I like so much about Sam Philips is how she can make a song that seems so light and airy and simple, and yet with each listen, you uncover new layers, both musically and lyrically. When I first heard Little Plastic Life, I only noticed the catchiness of the chorus. But with each consecutive listen, I started to hear how the song begins as a very organized, rigid march, a perfect intro to the theme of the "little plastic life" we build around ourselves. But with the lines "I detected fire in myself before the flame," the electric guitar comes in and suddenly the chorus becomes a celebration and release, letting go and allowing the little plastic life to burn. I think this careful craft is why Sam Phillips songs always grow on me incrementally, and I like them more and more with each listen.



The title song, Don't Do Anything, is a love song in the truest sense. On her MySpace page, Sam Phillips writes:

In one of the most important election years in the history of our United States, I am bringing out a record called Don’t Do Anything. This is not a political statement. The line of the song it’s taken from is “I love you when you don’t do anything”. I might have written this to my child, a lover, a friend, a dead person, or all of these. Maybe I wanted someone to write it to me. Maybe an extravagant expression of faith is the last thing we need this year. Maybe it’s the first. There is a lot to do in between.

Ok, now I'm getting tempted to go through my entire list of "highlights," but instead, why don't I just leave you to go enjoy the album and make your own decisions. :) Then let *me* know what *you* think!

Sam Phillips: Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us

The new Sam Phillips album is out! Normally, I would listen to the album straight through from start to finish, but this time I had to go straight to Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us. Alison Krauss and Robert Plant covered the song on Raising Sand, and if you remember, I was pretty wild about it. So I was dying to hear the Sam Phillips rendition.

It's always so interesting to hear how a writer interprets their own work. A poet, for instance, might put completely different emphasis on line breaks when reading their work outloud than I could have ever imagined in my head. Alison Krauss & Robert Plant's version of "Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us" is dreamy, introspective, eerie, polished. Sam Phillips takes a completely different approach to her own work. In comparison, it's messy, rushed, untamed...all in the best of ways. The way Alison Krauss sings the song, Sister Rosetta's music comes to the singer like a strange gift from above, supernatural, beautiful, and detached. In Sam Phillips' version, the music is a down-to-earth personal revelation, a tangible refuge, a place of abandon and release.

Ok, off to listen to the rest of the album. Tune in for more gushing next week...

Alison Krauss & Robert Plant version:


Sam Phillips version:

Sam Phillips: Can't Come Down

Well the news is out that the new Sam Phillips CD, Don't Do Anything, is now set to be released on June 2nd. Well, that's not February, but I'll take it.

In the meantime, you can browse around her newly revamped website, complete with a couple short, silent films and a blog.

And here's a video of her new song Can't Come Down:

Sam Phillips: I Need Love

I've been on a Sam Phillips kick recently. Probably because I had heard that she was coming out with a new album in February 2008, and I'm not ashamed to say, I've been checking her site every week or so for news. So when I found out that Don't Do Anything won't actually be out until June (sigh), I've been digging out all her old stuff, just to get my fix.

Last night, it was her 1994 album, Martinis & Bikinis, which Kevin had to finally ask me to turn the volume down on since I *was* kind of blasting out the whole neighborhood. But 1994 was the year I graduated high school, and I Need Love was one of the songs playing full blast in my head back then.

I've been a Sam Phillips fan since about 1986 (if you don't want to do the math, I was 11). Only she wasn't Sam back then, she was Leslie Phillips, a CCM ("Contemporary Christian Music") pop star who was billed by her record label as the "Christian Cyndi Lauper." Her album Black and White in a Grey World was one of the first cassette tapes I bought with my own money (and yes, I tried to wear my hair like that, too).

But Leslie Phillips' lyrics weren't the kind of warm, fuzzy mainstream CCM that was the norm in the 80s. She sang about spirituality in poetic and challenging ways and tackled the tough issues of both faith *and* doubt. In her songs, she called out the holier-than-thou, judgmental attitudes of the Christian community ("You smoke-screen with your judgmental words/But when the air clears you're just a scared little child/You smoke-screen, but you're fearful inside/That God doesn't love you/You let fear run you wild"). Her lyrics spoke so clearly to the world I lived in, and the ideas and emotions I was trying to sort through in my pre-teen years. I would listen on my pink portable tape player, liner notes in hand, following along word for word. Eventually in the late 80s, Leslie "went secular," changing her name and her record label, and I rooted for her all the way.

So that's all to say that if Leslie Phillips was the conduit for my pre-teen contemplations, by the time 1994 rolled around, Sam Phillips' I Need Love was the outlet for my particular brand of teen angst, blasted at full volume in my room on my very first CD player. It said everything I wanted to say:

I need love
Not some sentimental prison
I need god
Not the political church
I need fire
To melt the frozen sea inside me
I need love