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Tuesday, March 3, 2009
LESLIE PHELLIPS - THE TURNING -1 987
THIS ALBUM CONTAIN(10-TRACKS)
1-RIVER OF LOVE
2-LOVE IS NOT LOST
3-THE TURNING
4-LIBERA ME
5-CARRY YOU
6-BEATING HEART
7-EXPETATIONS
8-DOWN
9-ANSWER DON'T COME EASY
10-GOD IS WATCHING YOU
LESLIE PHELLIPS-BLACK AND WHITE IN A GREY WOLRD-1985
THIS ALBUM CONTAIN(12-TRACKS)
1-BLACK AND WHITE IN A GREY WOLRD
2-TUG OF WAR
3-WHEN THE WORLD IS NEW
4-PSALM 55
5-YOUR KINDNESS
6-LARGER THAN LIFE
7-THE MORE I KNOW YOU
8-SMOKE SCREEN
9-YOU'RE MY LORD
10-WALLS OF SILENCE
11-YOU'RE THE SAME
12-LOVE IS NOT LOST
LESLIE PHELLIPS-DANCING WITH DANGER-1984
THIS ALBUM CONTAIN(10-TRACKS)
1-DANCING WITH DANGER
2-I WON'T LET IT COME BETWEEN US
3-STREGTH OF MY LIFE
4-GIVE'EM ALL YOU'VE GOT(TONIGHT)
5-BY MY SPIRIT
6-HIDING IN THE SHADOWS
7-POWDER ROOM POLITICS
8-LIGHT OF LOVE
9-SONG IN THE NIGHT
10-HERE HE COMES WITH MY HEART
LESLIE PHELLIPS-BEYOND SATURDAY NIGHT-1983
THIS ALBUM CONTAIN(10-TRACKS)
1-HOURGLASS
2-GINA
3-PUT YOUR HEART IN ME
4-I'M FINDING
5-BEYOND SATURDAY NIGHT
6-BRING ME THROUGH
7-HEART OF HEARTS
8-WILL THEY LOVE HIM
9-HE'S GONNA HEAR YOU CRYING
10-GIVE BACK TO YOU
I was talking to a friend at a camp and said I wish I knew some other good Christian music besides Amy Grant. He asked if I knew Leslie Phillips and I said yes. He didn't know I meant I went to high school with her and I didn't know she was a singer. Actually I had heard her sing but didn't know she had albums. So he recommended a couple albums and one was "The Turning"....The Turning was really good.And I like it because it reflects a longing for faith but also the strangling effect of being a Christian Artist. She sings pointedly about how the community applies pressure to say the "right" things in her music. "You Lock me up with your expectations... Loosen the pressure you choke me with...I can't breathe...I can't breathe." That's a pretty heavy point blank shot at a sector of the often critical Christian music buying public who don't like it when the songs depart from the expected praise and worship. Clearly this is a goodbye album to the Christian community filled with fond rememberances and frustration. For that alone it is pretty fascinating. But musically it is really a lushly recorded rich accoustic experience with some nice haunting percussion. "The Turning" is aptly named. At some point a lot of Christians come to a point where they have to say to the Christian Community. This album says "I love you but it hurts too much to stay with you anymore. I can't squeeze into what you want me to be." Its dark and a little sad, but if you have been there and felt the feelings,Sam Phillips has long been one of the voices of hope and sanity where faith and art dance. Along with the likes of Peter Case, Mark Heard, Pierce Pettis, T Bone Burnett, Maria McKee, Vigilantes of Love, Bruce Cockburn, Ashley Cleveland, Kris Kristofferson, and a handful of others, Sam has given witness over the years to the struggle of "faith, hope, and love" against loss, despair, and cynicism on the one side and
superficiality, banality, and denial on the other. Years ago, Leonard Cohen asked "When they said 'Repent!', I wondered what they meant..." "The Turning" takes the question seriously, realizing that any "Slow Turning" can bend in both directions. Put this on the Music On A Cd-player along with John Hiatt's "Stolen Moments," Bruce Cockburn's .foremost among them Phillips, the Call, and Phil Keaggy. Most of their lyrics were poetic and compelling and didn't shove Christianity down my throat, and the music was truly original and, well, GOOD. The Call were successful mainstream rockers in their own right, and Keaggy was and is a well-known guitar guru. To this day I think The Turning is Phillips's best work. Even a Zen-pantheist heathen like myself still thoroughly enjoys listening to it(http://www.holymetalrob.com/)