Todd Phillips (musician)
Encyclopedia
Todd Phillips is an American double bassist. He is the bassist of choice for many of the most innovative, as well as traditional, acoustic instrumental and bluegrass recordings made since the mid-1970s. A two-time Grammy Award winner and founding member of the original David Grisman Quintet
, Phillips has made a career of consistently performing and recording with acoustic music's finest and most creative artists.
and Darol Anger
, Phillips was a founding member of the original David Grisman Quintet. He spent five years playing both rhythm mandolin and bass with the group. He then spent another five years with Rice in The Tony Rice Unit. Rice and Phillips also worked together with J.D. Crowe, Doyle Lawson, Bobby Hicks and Jerry Douglas in the now classic bluegrass recording group; The Bluegrass Album Band
- producing six albums over fifteen years. Since then, Phillips has had the opportunity to work with a virtual "who's who" of acoustic music's finest, such as Vassar Clements
, Ricky Skaggs
, Sam Bush
, Stephane Grapelli, Taj Mahal, John Hartford, Jerry Douglas
, Alison Brown
, Mike Marshall, Stuart Duncan
, Tim O'Brien
, Bryan Sutton
, Chris Thile
, Del McCoury
, Natalie McMaster, Darrell Scott
, Larry Campbell
and many more.
In 1983 Phillips received his first Grammy Award for his work with The New South (Crowe, Skaggs, Rice, Douglas) in a live concert recording; "Bluegrass - The Greatest Show on Earth". In '83 he also finished his critically acclaimed first solo recording; "Released" (Varrick Records), featuring Tony Rice and Darol Anger. Throughout the 1980s, Frets Magazine readers voted Phillips five Readers Poll Awards for "beat jazz" and "beat bluegrass bassist".
Phillips has recorded much since then as producer, engineer and artist. In 1993 he produced Kathy Kallick's "Matters of the Heart", and in 1995 he released his traditional "old-time" bluegrass instrumental CD; "In the Pines" (Gourd Music), and another CD of all original jazz influenced compositions "Timeframe" (Compass Records). Todd's second Grammy Award came in 1997 as producer of "True Life Blues - The Songs of Bill Monroe". The album received three Grammy nominations and won "Bluegrass Album of the Year". The project also received two I.B.M.A. Awards (International Bluegrass Music Association).
Throughout the 1990s Phillips toured and recorded with PsychoGrass (Anger, Marshall, Grier, Trischka, Phillips), The Laurie Lewis Band, NewGrange (O'Brien, Anger, Marshall, Brown, Aaberg, Phillips), The Tim O'Brien Band w/Darrel Scott, and Phillips, Grier & Flinner, among others.
Phillips has produced recordings for guitar great David Grier
; "Panorama", and two projects for mandolinist Matt Flinner; "The View From Here" and "Latitude", which lead to the formation of the innovative instrumental trio; Phillips, Grier & Flinner and their two highly acclaimed CD's "Phillips, Grier & Flinner" released in 1999, and "Looking Back" released in 2002 (Compass Records).These two CD's are unique in the world of Bluegrass or Jazz based instrumental music - successfully featuring only acoustic guitar, bass and mandolin as the complete ensemble.
Another new venture for Phillips came from his experiences teaching at several music camps, and in 2001 he completed an instructional video/DVD series for Homespun Tapes; "Essential Techniques for Acoustic Bass, I&II".
Recently he has been producing and engineering project at his home studio, including Noam Pikelny, Bearfoot Bluegrass, and PsychoGrass. He has just completed mixing (and playing on) the latest Laurie Lewis
Band CD "The Golden West". Phillips' most current effort is a tribute recording project for Rounder Records featuring the songs of Hazel Dickens performed by a host of legendary artists including Joan Osborne, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris. In November '06 he appeared on the David Letterman Show (watch the video below) with Elvis Costello and Rosanne Cash during a trip to NY. to record them both for the Dickens tribute project.
He currently tours with Phillips, Grier & Flinner, PsychoGrass, and Laurie Lewis
. Along with John Doyle
and Dirk Powell he forms the Band for Joan Baez
.
David Grisman Quintet
David Grisman Quintet is a self-styled alternative bluegrass/ acoustic jazz band founded by David Grisman in 1975 in San Francisco, California, USA. Following the Bill Monroe's bluegrass legacy and Django Reinhard's 30s swing, the David Grisman Quintet comes with entirely new style to the acoustic...
, Phillips has made a career of consistently performing and recording with acoustic music's finest and most creative artists.
Career
Along with Tony RiceTony Rice
Tony Rice is an American acoustic guitarist and bluegrass musician. He is considered one of the most influential acoustic guitar players in bluegrass, progressive bluegrass, newgrass and acoustic jazz.Rice spans the range of acoustic music, from traditional bluegrass to jazz-influenced New...
and Darol Anger
Darol Anger
-Career:Darol Anger entered popular music at the age of 21 as a founding member of The David Grisman Quintet. Anger played fiddle to David Grisman's mandolin in The David Grisman Quintet's 1977 debut. He co-founded the Turtle Island String Quartet with David Balakrishnan in 1985 and performed,...
, Phillips was a founding member of the original David Grisman Quintet. He spent five years playing both rhythm mandolin and bass with the group. He then spent another five years with Rice in The Tony Rice Unit. Rice and Phillips also worked together with J.D. Crowe, Doyle Lawson, Bobby Hicks and Jerry Douglas in the now classic bluegrass recording group; The Bluegrass Album Band
Bluegrass Album Band
Bluegrass Album Band was a bluegrass supergroup, founded by Tony Rice and J.D. Crowe in 1980. Originally, there was no intention to build a group and the main reason for the collaboration was to record a solo album for Tony Rice...
- producing six albums over fifteen years. Since then, Phillips has had the opportunity to work with a virtual "who's who" of acoustic music's finest, such as Vassar Clements
Vassar Clements
Vassar Clements was a Grammy Award- winning American jazz, swing, and bluegrass fiddler. Clements has been dubbed the Father of Hillbilly Jazz, an improvisational style that blends and borrows from swing, hot jazz, and bluegrass along with roots also in country and other musical...
, Ricky Skaggs
Ricky Skaggs
Rickie Lee "Ricky" Skaggs is a country and bluegrass singer, musician, producer, and composer. He primarily plays mandolin; however, he also plays fiddle, guitar, and banjo.-Early career:...
, Sam Bush
Sam Bush
Sam Bush is an American bluegrass mandolin player considered an originator of the Newgrass style.- History :...
, Stephane Grapelli, Taj Mahal, John Hartford, Jerry Douglas
Jerry Douglas
Jerry Douglas may refer to:*Jerry Douglas , actor, who was on The Young and the Restless for 25 years*Jerry Douglas, country/bluegrass musician*Jerry Douglas , director and writer of adult films such as, Score...
, Alison Brown
Alison Brown
Alison Brown is an American banjo player and guitarist known for a soft nylon-string banjo sound. She has won and has been nominated on several Grammy awards and is often compared to another banjo prodigy, Béla Fleck for her unique style of playing...
, Mike Marshall, Stuart Duncan
Stuart Duncan
Stuart Duncan is a bluegrass musician who plays the fiddle, mandolin, guitar and banjo. Born in Quantico, Virginia and raised in Santa Paula, California, where he played in the school band, he has been a member of the Nashville Bluegrass Band since 1985, and is a much-in-demand session musician...
, Tim O'Brien
Tim O'Brien (musician)
Tim O'Brien is an American country and bluegrass musician. In addition to singing, he plays guitar, fiddle, mandolin, banjo, bouzouki and mandocello...
, Bryan Sutton
Bryan Sutton
Bryan Sutton is an American musician. Primarily known as a flatpicked acoustic guitar player, Sutton also plays many other instruments including mandolin, banjo, and electric guitar....
, Chris Thile
Chris Thile
Christopher Scott Thile is an American musician, best known as the mandolinist and a singer for the progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek. His current band is Punch Brothers whose most recent album is Antifogmatic...
, Del McCoury
Del McCoury
Delano Floyd McCoury is an American bluegrass musician. As leader of the Del McCoury Band, he plays guitar and sings lead vocals along with his two sons, Ronnie McCoury and Rob McCoury, who play mandolin and banjo respectively...
, Natalie McMaster, Darrell Scott
Darrell Scott
James Darrell Scott known as Darrell Scott , the son of musician Wayne Scott with whom he has collaborated, is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He moved as a child to East Gary, Indiana. He was playing professionally by his teens in Southern California, later living in...
, Larry Campbell
Larry Campbell
Larry W. Campbell was the 37th Mayor of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is currently a member of the Canadian Senate. Starting in 1969 Campbell worked for the RCMP in Vancouver and then in 1973 as a member of the Drug Squad...
and many more.
In 1983 Phillips received his first Grammy Award for his work with The New South (Crowe, Skaggs, Rice, Douglas) in a live concert recording; "Bluegrass - The Greatest Show on Earth". In '83 he also finished his critically acclaimed first solo recording; "Released" (Varrick Records), featuring Tony Rice and Darol Anger. Throughout the 1980s, Frets Magazine readers voted Phillips five Readers Poll Awards for "beat jazz" and "beat bluegrass bassist".
Phillips has recorded much since then as producer, engineer and artist. In 1993 he produced Kathy Kallick's "Matters of the Heart", and in 1995 he released his traditional "old-time" bluegrass instrumental CD; "In the Pines" (Gourd Music), and another CD of all original jazz influenced compositions "Timeframe" (Compass Records). Todd's second Grammy Award came in 1997 as producer of "True Life Blues - The Songs of Bill Monroe". The album received three Grammy nominations and won "Bluegrass Album of the Year". The project also received two I.B.M.A. Awards (International Bluegrass Music Association).
Throughout the 1990s Phillips toured and recorded with PsychoGrass (Anger, Marshall, Grier, Trischka, Phillips), The Laurie Lewis Band, NewGrange (O'Brien, Anger, Marshall, Brown, Aaberg, Phillips), The Tim O'Brien Band w/Darrel Scott, and Phillips, Grier & Flinner, among others.
Phillips has produced recordings for guitar great David Grier
David Grier
David Grier is an American acoustic guitarist. He is considered to be one of the premier flatpicking guitarists in the world. His unique phrasing and his ability to create multiple variations on a theme are hallmarks of his playing style...
; "Panorama", and two projects for mandolinist Matt Flinner; "The View From Here" and "Latitude", which lead to the formation of the innovative instrumental trio; Phillips, Grier & Flinner and their two highly acclaimed CD's "Phillips, Grier & Flinner" released in 1999, and "Looking Back" released in 2002 (Compass Records).These two CD's are unique in the world of Bluegrass or Jazz based instrumental music - successfully featuring only acoustic guitar, bass and mandolin as the complete ensemble.
Another new venture for Phillips came from his experiences teaching at several music camps, and in 2001 he completed an instructional video/DVD series for Homespun Tapes; "Essential Techniques for Acoustic Bass, I&II".
Recently he has been producing and engineering project at his home studio, including Noam Pikelny, Bearfoot Bluegrass, and PsychoGrass. He has just completed mixing (and playing on) the latest Laurie Lewis
Laurie Lewis
Laurie Lewis , is an American bluegrass musician.- History :Lewis fell in love with American folk music as a teenager, at the sunset of the 1960s folk revival. She says of the Berkeley Folk Festivals where she first caught the folk bug:"Oh, it was so exciting...
Band CD "The Golden West". Phillips' most current effort is a tribute recording project for Rounder Records featuring the songs of Hazel Dickens performed by a host of legendary artists including Joan Osborne, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris. In November '06 he appeared on the David Letterman Show (watch the video below) with Elvis Costello and Rosanne Cash during a trip to NY. to record them both for the Dickens tribute project.
He currently tours with Phillips, Grier & Flinner, PsychoGrass, and Laurie Lewis
Laurie Lewis
Laurie Lewis , is an American bluegrass musician.- History :Lewis fell in love with American folk music as a teenager, at the sunset of the 1960s folk revival. She says of the Berkeley Folk Festivals where she first caught the folk bug:"Oh, it was so exciting...
. Along with John Doyle
John Doyle (musician)
John Doyle is an Irish musician and songwriter. For four years he served as acoustic guitarist with the Irish/American band Solas. He is now an active solo artist...
and Dirk Powell he forms the Band for Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
.