Thank you, Shawn Phillips

When I was much younger, I always had music on, but now it seems I only play it when I’m in the car driving or at home cleaning, as was the case this morning. On occasion I put on the radio or Pandora, but more often than not I go to my shelves and select a CD from my collection. My adult kids like to remind me that I don’t need CDs any longer, but I enjoy reading the liner notes and the tactile feel of opening the case and slipping the CD into my player. Anyway, this morning I knew what I wanted to put on. Talented musician and friend, Shawn Phillips, recently posted that he would no longer be able to tour due to health issues, including severe heart failure. That post inspired me to select Second Contribution one of Shawn’s many CDs I have. Before it was a CD, I had it in vinyl and was the first one I bought oh so many years ago. As the first song began earlier today, I was immediately brought back in time with the memory of discovering this talented musician’s work.

It was a Sunday afternoon and I was in my farmhouse bedroom in Upstate New York, listening to my favorite radio station, CHOM-FM, which came out of Montreal. I lived about three miles from the Canadian border and Montreal was less than a two-hour drive, but it could’ve been across the world. My dad was Superintendent of Highways, owned a sawmill and helped my grandpa with farming; therefore, there was no time for fun daytrips. But CHOM-FM brought the world to me. That afternoon, as music poured into my room, I stopped what I was doing, (probably writing on my typewriter)

and listened to something I had never heard before. I didn’t know then that I was hearing a 12-string guitar and four-octave vocal range but only that I was riveted. This was back in the time when radio stations had the luxury of not being constrained and could play entire albums without commercial interruption. Shawn now refers to the song as “Woman,” but on the CD –bear with me—the title is “She Was Waitin’ For Her Mother at the Station in Torino and You Know I Love You Baby But It’s Getting Too Heavy to Laugh.” (It’s a fun title to use when playing charades.) That said, after hearing more from this talented man, I was a fan. But I wasn’t the only one. Shawn would fill up arenas around the world, including Place des Arts in Montreal. I knew there wasn’t a chance of my getting to go to any of his tours since I was a teenager without any means of travel, but I would save up my baby-sitting money and buy his albums. For the times I was lucky enough to have the house to myself, which was rare, I’d take my album and put it on my mother’s stereo in the living room and dance with all my heart to that first track that flowed into the second and then the third. Anyone who knew me then, knew how much I loved to dance. Still do.

Over time I married and moved to Long Island, taking all my albums with me. I’m not sure when exactly it was, but I’d read in the paper that Shawn Phillips would be performing at a club here on Long Island called My Father’s Place. I figured it had to be a different performer since Shawn sold out audiences in big arenas, so I called the club to justify my suspicions, asking a number of questions with one final one: “Is this the same Shawn Phillips who has really long hair?” The person on the phone said, “Had long hair. It got caught in an outboard motor.”

So, a couple of weeks later, I was one in a small gathering astounded. Don’t people know who this is? Don’t they realize that he collaborated with Donovan, contributed backing vocals on the Beatles’ Lovely Rita and taught George Harrison his first lessons on the sitar? That experience was a good reminder to me that sometimes no matter how talented one is, getting a large audience can be a challenge. (As an author with sometimes only a couple of people showing up at my readings, I can relate.) Even so, I was too intimidated to approach Shawn once the concert was over to let him know how much I loved his music. As far as I was concerned he was inaccessible since his talent was bigger than life making me still feel like that small-town farm girl.

But there’s another fan in this story. My younger brother, Carl, recalls the first time I had him listen to Shawn Phillips, not long after I bought Second Contribution. His bedroom was across the hall from mine and he stood there listening, immediately appreciating what he was hearing. Ever since then, we’d love to talk about Shawn’s music, Carl having gone to several of his concerts. Eventually, Shawn was living in South Africa and actually worked as a paramedic with the National Sea Rescue Institute. (Didn’t see that coming, did you?) Then, one day, Carl called me and told me that Shawn would be performing at The Ole Barn in Inlet, NY in the Adirondacks. Apparently, he was back on tour. Carl was living in Maryland then and I was on Long Island, but even though it would require an overnight stay, Carl wondered if I’d be game in meeting him there. I was. So we each booked our own cabin near where the concert would take place and met up to share a very special evening. We had front row seating in an intimate setting. This time, once the concert ended, I was no longer intimidated and approached Shawn. At that time, my first novel, Without Grace, had just been published so I asked Shawn if I could give him a copy without at all expecting he would read it. In my mind, though, it was one creative person sharing with another. He kindly accepted the book and said since he was traveling in his RV, he welcomed the down time at night when he could read. However, I figured he was just being kind. Imagine my shock several weeks later when he emailed me, saying, “All the while I was reading, I kept thinking this is as good, if not better, than Isaac Bashevis Singer. You took life, and articulated it as if you were one of Robert Heinlens, “Fair Witnesses.” It was about the evolution of a human being, and the sometimes agonizing decisions we are forced to make on our drives to center ourselves.” His kind words meant the world to me.

At some point over time, Shawn and I became Facebook friends. Now he’s on Patreon.com. I’m sorry that his health is an issue, but how grateful am I, this former farm girl, actually got to befriend someone who I discovered so long ago and provided me special memories that I will always cherish.