Shawn Phillips
Album: Faces
Label: Talking Elephant
Tracks: 9
Website: http://www.shawnphillipsmusic.com/

Shawn Phillips from Fort Worth in Texas is a singer songwriter form the early 70's although he is still going strong now and performs regularly.

In the 1960's Phillips worked as a session player on several Donovan albums including Fairytale, Sunshine Superman, and Mellow Yellow, performed at the Isle of Wight festival, sang on "Lovely Rita" by the Beatles, and was cast to play the lead in the original production of Jesus Christ Superstar although he had to withdraw due to his heavy recording and touring schedule. He was also thrown out of the UK for not having a work permit but not before helping to teach George Harrison how to play the Sitar.

To date, Shawn has released fifteen albums and this album "Faces" is one of four that have been re-released via Talking Elephant. His music will appeal to lovers of folk-rock, jazz, progressive and classical music. It is certainly an unusual mix.

The connection to Donovan, an artist whose music I really loved at the time, is most evident on the opening track "Landscape." The simple guitar riff followed by a superbly mellow voice takes me back in time to the period of flower power. "L Ballade" follows on in a similar vein. It has a delightful orchestral movement in the middle of the track which possibly makes it my favourite track on the album. The orchestration even has a touch of The Beatles about it. "Hey Miss Lonely" is a real throwback to the sound of the 60's and 70's with a nice bit of Hawaiian sounding electric guitar in the background. "Chorale" does and is what it says on the tin although the use of the Sitar was unexpected. A slightly ethereal track using falsetto voice! Cannot quite make my mind up about this one! "Parisian Plight II" starts with a series of noises for about 3 minutes then develops into a jazz number. It has some fabulous Hammond Organ in the middle although at 13 minutes long it is perhaps just a tad too much for an album. It would be great to hear it played live though. Take a close listen to the words on "We" a lovely story about love ending, once again with the falsetto voice. The next two tracks "Annello" and "I Took a Walk" take the album on a different road. The final track "A Christmas Song" is a joyous way to end this delightful and varied album. A song full of cheer and fun at this very special time of year! It is also a song that many people will be familiar with even if they did not know who had written it and first recorded it.

Shawn's voice is different on each track to the point where you may, like me, begin to doubt that it is the same singer. According to the sleeve notes though it is. This is a delightful album even if with only nine tracks it is rather short compared to modern albums. However, what it lacks in quantity it more than makes up for in quality. All the songs were written in the period between 1969 and 1972, so if you like this musical period and/or Donovan give this album a go.

Rory Stanbridge