{"id":452,"date":"2013-08-27T20:00:43","date_gmt":"2013-08-27T20:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/216.71.127.204\/wordpress\/?p=452"},"modified":"2015-10-07T20:38:02","modified_gmt":"2015-10-07T20:38:02","slug":"shawn-phillips-mucky-duck-houston-tx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/houstonmusicreview.com\/wordpress\/2013\/08\/27\/shawn-phillips-mucky-duck-houston-tx\/","title":{"rendered":"Shawn Phillips – Mucky Duck – Houston, TX"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n
Written by James Killen <\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Aug 27, 2013 at 07:00 PM<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\"Image\"Shawn Phillips has been one step from the famous for most of his life.<\/p>\n

He went to school with John Denver (nee Deutchendorf) and Delbert McClinton in Fort Worth. He studied sitar with Ravi Shankar. He roomed and wrote with Donovan, sang back-up vocals for the Beatles on \u201cLovely Rita Meter Maid\u201d, and had Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood and Rick Wakeman play on his third album \u201cContribution\u201d. Peter Robinson and Paul Buckmaster, two of the most famous classically trained arrangers and composers were constantly involved with his album productions. He\u2019s recorded 20 albums and has 5 more anthologies made of his music. His influences range from folk-rock, to jazz, to progressive, to pop and to classical and beyond. His voice could travel 5 octaves from baritone to counter-tenor. He could hold a note firm or with a distinctive vibrato for a seemingly indeterminate amount of time.<\/p>\n

I can remember spending hours in my Freshman year at the University of Houston dorms listening to the album, \u201cFurthermore\u201d and letting the music wash over me and the lyrics play in my mind. Shawn says that his writing style is a little different than most folks in that he seldom writes a refrain. Refrains, he says are for the people that weren\u2019t listening the first time. There are three elements to a song, he says; anger, wonder and technique, technique being the method by which the anger and wonder are melded together. He generally starts with the music and then works up lyrics to fit the feelings of the music. Once he starts to write a song, he doesn\u2019t leave the room until he\u2019s finished. \u201cTalking in the Garden\u201d took two weeks of being sequestered before he considered it finished.<\/p>\n

Shawn was in Houston last Tuesday night from his current home in South Africa, playing a show at the Duck. He had no band to accompany him and the stage was set up with two acoustic guitars, one electric and a bass. There was also an impressive array of electronics, pedals, buttons and slides. I found myself seated right up front with members of the Shawn Phillips fan club (aka. EMH named after the Phillips classic \u201cEarly Morning Hours\u201d.) The music began when Shawn picked up his nylon strung acoustic and slowly began to put his voice through its paces.<\/p>\n

By the second song, \u201cWe\u201d, Phillips\u2018 voice was everything that I remembered it to be. He clicked on the reverb for a trippy version of \u201cMoonshine\u201d. On finishing that song, he stopped to share a little of his personal philosophy. One of the most incongruous things about a Phillips show is how he sings like an opera star and then speaks with a down home Texas accent, no different from the gas station attendant that used to say, \u201cCan I check your oil?\u201d It\u2019s endearing to an old East Texas boy, like me.<\/p>\n

\"Image\"After performing \u201cCalico and Rainbows\u201d, he picked up his electric guitar and unashamedly flipped on a taped backup band track to perform \u201cCircles\u201d as the funk tune that he had originally perceived it as. He said that, \u201cI know there are people out there that would just as soon have me do the whole show with an acoustic and a mike, but if I have to do it every night, I\u2019m going to have fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Social consciousness has always been a part of the Shawn Phillips lyrical presentation and none so much as on \u201cTimes of a Madman, Trials of a Thief\u201d. He performed \u201cMotes of Dust\u201d next. It was the first song that he wrote after a boating accident that involved his trademark long hair and a propeller shaft that resulted in brain damage and a several year hiatus in his career. At 70 years old, he still performs with the famous vocal range and sustain of his younger years.<\/p>\n

The show continued with an almost religious \u201cAscend\u201d from his latest CD followed by the world music influenced \u201cAnello (Where Are You?)\u201d. His performance of \u201cSteel Eyes\u201d contrasted periods of silence with soaring vocals and some of the most distinctive whistling I have ever heard to take the place of an instrumental lead. He followed that with \u201cWhaz\u2019 Zat\u201d played over another taped track.<\/p>\n

\u201cI Took a Walk\u201d featured multiple layers of tape looping over a drum machine in which we watched him lay down a couple of rhythm tracks and a bass line before taking off with the lyrics and lead guitar parts. That was followed by the epic, \u201cTalking in the Garden\u201d.<\/p>\n

Shawn dedicated \u201cStarlight\u201d to IZ Kamakawiwo\u2019ole, a Hawaiian singer famous for his rendition of \u201cOver the Rainbow\u201d. Phillips\u2019 high octave performance had a number of the ladies in the audience giggling giddily, before he kicked in on what was probably his best known tune, \u201cWoman\u201d performed with an electric reverb intro to the moving, ethereal vocals. Shawn wrapped up his show with a song from his latest disc, dedicated to his wife, \u201cEverything That She Gives Me\u201d.<\/p>\n

It had been a while since I had treated myself to a Shawn Phillips live show. I had forgotten the pure talent that reportedly had the late promoter, Bill Graham, call Shawn Phillips America\u2019s best kept musical secret. If I get the chance, I\u2019ll be there the next time Shawn makes the trip from across the Atlantic. Until the next show, ya\u2019ll have fun. We do.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by James Killen Aug 27, 2013 at 07:00 PM Shawn Phillips has been one step from the famous for most of his life. He went to school with John Denver (nee Deutchendorf) and Delbert McClinton in Fort Worth. He studied sitar with Ravi Shankar. He roomed and wrote with Donovan, sang back-up vocals for… <\/p>\n

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