Grant-Lee Phillips
Encyclopedia
Grant-Lee Phillips is a singer-songwriter
and multi-instrumentalist known for his versatile voice, intense lyrical narratives and dexterity on the acoustic twelve-string guitar, a style that often sees him compared to Neil Young
, Van Morrison
, Bruce Springsteen
and Bob Dylan
.
, Phillips began playing the guitar in his early teens and persevered throughout high school. At age 19 he moved to Los Angeles
where he worked tarring roofs to fund evening classes at UCLA and the possibility of forming a band at weekends. He eventually dropped out of college and linked up with an old friend from Stockton named Jeffery Clark. In the late 1980s Phillips lived on campus at Cal-Arts with future wife Denise Siegel, who he met at a party through a fellow student and first Shiva Burlesque bassist, James Brenner. Phillips lived and informally took art classes, went to public lectures, film screenings and immersed himself in the constant goings on of the school's World Music program until 1990. Shiva Burlesque released two LPs Shiva Burlesque (Nate Starkman & Son; 1987) before work on Mercury Blues (Fundamental; 1990) Brenner was replaced by Paul Kimble thus completing what would be the basis of Grant-Lee Buffalo. But due to the late 80s/early 90s Los Angeles obsession with spandex and glam metal
, Shiva Burlesque, made no commercial impact. Phillips and Clark disbanded in 1990. Phillips began playing solo around Los Angeles under the stage name Grant-Lee Buffalo.
, Phillips recruited ex-Shiva members Joey Peters (drums) and Paul Kimble (bass) for rehearsals as Grant Lee Buffalo
in mid-1991. Phillips was now writing lyrics as well as music and the trio quickly built up a local following, selling out clubs on the strength of Phillips's intense performance. His political storytelling was delivered in a recently discovered voice: both a soaring falsetto and a nourishing drawl that matched his aggressive acoustic guitar stomp and pouting physicality. One song, "Fuzzy", was released on Bob Mould
's Singles Only Label in 1992 to huge critical acclaim and lead to Grant Lee Buffalo being signed to Slash Records
. The debut LP, also called Fuzzy, was released a year later, upon which Michael Stipe
of R.E.M.
declared it "the best album of the year hands down". In 1995 Grant-Lee Phillips was named the critics choice for Best Male Vocalist of 1995.
A further three Grant Lee Buffalo albums followed. Mighty Joe Moon
(1994), Copperopolis (1996), and Jubilee (1998) were all quite different and highly accomplished. A live performance of Mighty Joe Moons title track is available online from the South by Southwest
festival. Though all were heavily promoted through concert touring, they never escaped cult status largely thanks to a lack of support from the Warner Bros label and a frustrated Phillips disbanded the band in early 1999.
-based indie label Rounder Records
and launched a solo career, issuing the intimate Ladies' Love Oracle
over the Internet
in 2000. The recording was later more widely released. His first full-length LP, Mobilize
, was released to enormous critical acclaim in 2001. Being praised as much for its gentleness as much as Buffalo were for their rock, it featured Phillips's talents on many instruments, including both dreamy pop and dark but comforting ballads. Touring followed with sets containing solo and Buffalo material in equal measure.
During a short tour with Robyn Hitchcock
, Phillips co-produced and co-starred in a concert film of the tour shot in Seattle titled Elixirs & Remedies.
In 2004 Virginia Creeper
arrived and with it a more folky, almost-country record noted for the complete absence of the electric guitar
. In 2006 Phillips released another acoustic album, Nineteeneighties
. An ambitious set of cover versions, it featured songs from The Smiths
, Pixies, New Order
, Robyn Hitchcock
, R.E.M.
, The Church
, and Echo & the Bunnymen
. A new record of his own material, Strangelet, was released on March 27, 2007. On October 13, 2009, Grant released his latest album of new material titled "Little Moon" on Yep Roc records.
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
and multi-instrumentalist known for his versatile voice, intense lyrical narratives and dexterity on the acoustic twelve-string guitar, a style that often sees him compared to Neil Young
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
, Van Morrison
Van Morrison
Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...
, Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
and Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
.
Background
Born in Stockton, CaliforniaStockton, California
Stockton, California, the seat of San Joaquin County, is the fourth-largest city in the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. With a population of 291,707 at the 2010 census, Stockton ranks as this state's 13th largest city...
, Phillips began playing the guitar in his early teens and persevered throughout high school. At age 19 he moved to Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
where he worked tarring roofs to fund evening classes at UCLA and the possibility of forming a band at weekends. He eventually dropped out of college and linked up with an old friend from Stockton named Jeffery Clark. In the late 1980s Phillips lived on campus at Cal-Arts with future wife Denise Siegel, who he met at a party through a fellow student and first Shiva Burlesque bassist, James Brenner. Phillips lived and informally took art classes, went to public lectures, film screenings and immersed himself in the constant goings on of the school's World Music program until 1990. Shiva Burlesque released two LPs Shiva Burlesque (Nate Starkman & Son; 1987) before work on Mercury Blues (Fundamental; 1990) Brenner was replaced by Paul Kimble thus completing what would be the basis of Grant-Lee Buffalo. But due to the late 80s/early 90s Los Angeles obsession with spandex and glam metal
Glam metal
Glam metal is a subgenre of hard rock and heavy metal that arose in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the United States, particularly on the Los Angeles Sunset Strip music scene...
, Shiva Burlesque, made no commercial impact. Phillips and Clark disbanded in 1990. Phillips began playing solo around Los Angeles under the stage name Grant-Lee Buffalo.
Grant Lee Buffalo
Following those handful of solo shows at clubs around HollywoodHollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...
, Phillips recruited ex-Shiva members Joey Peters (drums) and Paul Kimble (bass) for rehearsals as Grant Lee Buffalo
Grant Lee Buffalo
Grant Lee Buffalo is a rock band based in Los Angeles, California, consisting of Grant-Lee Phillips , Paul Kimble and Joey Peters . All three were previously members of another Los Angeles band, Shiva Burlesque.-Career:...
in mid-1991. Phillips was now writing lyrics as well as music and the trio quickly built up a local following, selling out clubs on the strength of Phillips's intense performance. His political storytelling was delivered in a recently discovered voice: both a soaring falsetto and a nourishing drawl that matched his aggressive acoustic guitar stomp and pouting physicality. One song, "Fuzzy", was released on Bob Mould
Bob Mould
Robert Arthur "Bob" Mould is an American musician, principally known for his work as guitarist, vocalist and songwriter for alternative rock bands Hüsker Dü in the 1980s and Sugar in the 1990s.-Early life:...
's Singles Only Label in 1992 to huge critical acclaim and lead to Grant Lee Buffalo being signed to Slash Records
Slash Records
Slash Records is a record label in Los Angeles, originally specializing in local and punk rock bands.The label was formed in 1978 by Bob Biggs as an outgrowth of the Los Angeles-based fanzine, Slash. Biggs, a painter, initiated the label with a seven-inch single from The Germs in 1978. A full album...
. The debut LP, also called Fuzzy, was released a year later, upon which Michael Stipe
Michael Stipe
John Michael Stipe is an American singer and lyricist. He was the lead vocalist of the alternative rock band R.E.M.Stipe is noted and occasionally parodied for the "mumbling" style of his early career as well as his social and political activism. He was in charge of R.E.M.'s visual image; often...
of R.E.M.
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...
declared it "the best album of the year hands down". In 1995 Grant-Lee Phillips was named the critics choice for Best Male Vocalist of 1995.
A further three Grant Lee Buffalo albums followed. Mighty Joe Moon
Mighty Joe Moon
Mighty Joe Moon is the second album by alternative rock group Grant Lee Buffalo, released in 1994.- Track listing :# "Lone Star Song"# "Mockingbirds"# "It's The Life"# "Sing Along"# "Mighty Joe Moon"# "Demon Called Deception"...
(1994), Copperopolis (1996), and Jubilee (1998) were all quite different and highly accomplished. A live performance of Mighty Joe Moons title track is available online from the South by Southwest
South by Southwest
South by Southwest is an Austin, Texas based company dedicated to planning conferences, trade shows, festivals and other events. Their current roster of annual events include: SXSW Music, SXSW Film, SXSW Interactive, SXSWedu, and SXSWeco and take place every spring in Austin, Texas, United States...
festival. Though all were heavily promoted through concert touring, they never escaped cult status largely thanks to a lack of support from the Warner Bros label and a frustrated Phillips disbanded the band in early 1999.
Solo career
Phillips immediately signed to the BostonBoston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
-based indie label Rounder Records
Rounder Records
Rounder Records, originally of Cambridge, Massachusetts, but now based in Burlington, Massachusetts, is a record label founded in 1970 by Ken Irwin, Bill Nowlin and Marian Leighton-Levy, while all three were still university students...
and launched a solo career, issuing the intimate Ladies' Love Oracle
Ladies Love Oracle (album)
-Track listing:#"You're A Pony"—2:05#"Heavenly"—2:24#"Squint"—3:36#"Don't Look Down"—4:40#"Flamin' Shoe"—3:53#"Folding"—3:32#"Lonesome Serenade"—3:24#"Nothin' Is For Sure"—4:30#"St. Expedite"—3:00...
over the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
in 2000. The recording was later more widely released. His first full-length LP, Mobilize
Mobilize (Grant-Lee Phillips album)
Mobilize is the second album by Grant-Lee Phillips after the internet release of Ladies Love Oracle. Mobilize was released to great critical acclaim because of its versatility and it showed Phillips' talent on many instruments including a twelve string guitar, piano, bass and horn instruments...
, was released to enormous critical acclaim in 2001. Being praised as much for its gentleness as much as Buffalo were for their rock, it featured Phillips's talents on many instruments, including both dreamy pop and dark but comforting ballads. Touring followed with sets containing solo and Buffalo material in equal measure.
During a short tour with Robyn Hitchcock
Robyn Hitchcock
Robyn Rowan Hitchcock is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. While primarily a vocalist and guitarist, he also plays harmonica, piano and bass guitar....
, Phillips co-produced and co-starred in a concert film of the tour shot in Seattle titled Elixirs & Remedies.
In 2004 Virginia Creeper
Virginia Creeper (album)
Virginia Creeper is the third album by American singer-songwriter Grant-Lee Phillips, released on 24 February 2004.-Track listing:All songs were written by Grant-Lee Phillips, except where noted.#"Mona Lisa" – 4:11 #"Waking Memory" – 4:07...
arrived and with it a more folky, almost-country record noted for the complete absence of the electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
. In 2006 Phillips released another acoustic album, Nineteeneighties
Nineteeneighties
-Track listing:#"Wave of Mutilation" – 3:36#"Age of Consent" – 3:34#"The Eternal" – 5:15#"I Often Dream of Trains" – 3:20#"The Killing Moon" – 4:14...
. An ambitious set of cover versions, it featured songs from The Smiths
The Smiths
The Smiths were an English alternative rock band, formed in Manchester in 1982. Based on the song writing partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr , the band also included Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce...
, Pixies, New Order
New Order
New Order are an English rock band formed in 1980 by Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris...
, Robyn Hitchcock
Robyn Hitchcock
Robyn Rowan Hitchcock is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. While primarily a vocalist and guitarist, he also plays harmonica, piano and bass guitar....
, R.E.M.
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...
, The Church
The Church (band)
The Church is an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1980. Initially associated with new wave and the neo-psychedelic sound of the mid 1980s, their music later became more reminiscent of progressive rock, featuring long instrumental jams and complex guitar interplay...
, and Echo & the Bunnymen
Echo & the Bunnymen
Echo & the Bunnymen are an English post-punk band, formed in Liverpool in 1978. The original line-up consisted of vocalist Ian McCulloch, guitarist Will Sergeant and bass player Les Pattinson, supplemented by a drum machine. By 1980, Pete de Freitas had joined as the band's drummer, and their debut...
. A new record of his own material, Strangelet, was released on March 27, 2007. On October 13, 2009, Grant released his latest album of new material titled "Little Moon" on Yep Roc records.
- Grant-Lee Phillips is a registered member of the Creek Native American tribe (on his mother's side) and a direct descendant of those who walked the Trail of Tears.
- Phillips is related to Chief John Ross on his father's side. Paternally he is both Blackfoot and Cherokee ancestry.
- Phillips has been married only once, to the same woman for more than 20 years. He became father to Violet Thea Phillips, January 11, 2008.
- Phillips has scored several films and TV shows as well as having a re-occurring role as "The Town Troubadour" on "The Gilmore Girls."
- Phillips has a comedic background, having been a cast member in high school of the only professional theater in Stockton, Pollardville.
- Phillips has co-written songs with numerous people, most recently with comedian Margaret Cho. He can be seen featured in her video "Asian Adjacent." The song being partially inspired by Phillips and star of Flight of the Choncords Jermaine Clement, who is part Maori.
Discography
| Year | Album | Additional information |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 2000 in music See also:* 2000 in music Record labels established in 2000-Events:*January – Gary Glitter is released from jail, two months before his sentence for sexual offences ends.*January 1**John Tavener is knighted in the New Year's Honours List.... |
Ladies' Love Oracle Ladies Love Oracle (album) -Track listing:#"You're A Pony"—2:05#"Heavenly"—2:24#"Squint"—3:36#"Don't Look Down"—4:40#"Flamin' Shoe"—3:53#"Folding"—3:32#"Lonesome Serenade"—3:24#"Nothin' Is For Sure"—4:30#"St. Expedite"—3:00... |
|
| 2001 2001 in music See also:* 2001 in music Record labels established in 2001-Events:*January 1**Comeback of Guns N' Roses in House of Blues**Hum disbands.*January 17 – Bass player Jason Newsted leaves Metallica after 14 years with the band.... |
Mobilize Mobilize (Grant-Lee Phillips album) Mobilize is the second album by Grant-Lee Phillips after the internet release of Ladies Love Oracle. Mobilize was released to great critical acclaim because of its versatility and it showed Phillips' talent on many instruments including a twelve string guitar, piano, bass and horn instruments... |
|
| 2004 2004 in music See also:* 2004 in music Record labels established in 2004-January:*January 1**The Vienna New Year's Concert is conducted by Riccardo Muti.**Kurt Nilsen wins World Idol.... |
Virginia Creeper Virginia Creeper (album) Virginia Creeper is the third album by American singer-songwriter Grant-Lee Phillips, released on 24 February 2004.-Track listing:All songs were written by Grant-Lee Phillips, except where noted.#"Mona Lisa" – 4:11 #"Waking Memory" – 4:07... |
|
| 2006 2006 in music This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 2006.-January:*January 10 – Eric Burdon releases his album Soul of a Man and begins touring with a new band.... |
nineteeneighties Nineteeneighties -Track listing:#"Wave of Mutilation" – 3:36#"Age of Consent" – 3:34#"The Eternal" – 5:15#"I Often Dream of Trains" – 3:20#"The Killing Moon" – 4:14... |
|
| 2007 2007 in music This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 2007.-January:*January 1 - George Shearing is knighted for services to music in the Queen's New Year Honours List. Evelyn Glennie becomes a Dame... |
Strangelet Strangelet (album) -Track listing:#"Runaway"#"Soft Asylum "#"Fountain Of Youth"#"Hidden Hand"#"Dream In Color"#"Chain Lightning"#"Raise The Spirit"#"Same Blue Devils"#"Killing A Dead Man"#"Johnny Guitar"#"Return To Love"#"So Much"... |
|
| 2009 2009 in music The following is a list of notable events and releases in 2009 in music. Susan Boyle's album I Dreamed a Dream became the biggest selling album in the world for 2009, selling 8.3 million copies in five weeks; more than any other artist's in the whole year... |
Little Moon | |