Sam Phillips
A Boot And A Shoe (Nonesuch)
by Marc Hirsh
originally published in Nashville
Scene, September 16-22, 2004
Critic's pick: Sam
Phillips @ Ryman Auditorium, Friday,
September 17, 2004
It’s hard to believe at times that Sam Phillips’s pre- and
post-millennial albums come from the same planet, let alone the same
person. Having
already fled Christian rock in the late 1980s to create skewed, crisply
produced pop music like the Ralph Lauren-appropriated “I Need Love,”
Phillips
is now in the midst of a third clearly distinct phase of her career,
where she seems
remarkably at ease conjuring up a sort of gypsy Weimar cabaret. It
could easily
be only an affectation, but the songs on her new A Boot
And A Shoe sound fundamentally born out of arrangements that
other performers might use simply as window dressing. As a result, it’s
almost
impossible to guess where her melodies will take her
honey-and-sandpaper voice.
Like the lost triplet of Marlene Dietrich and Marianne Faithfull,
Phillips is
world-weary in the extreme (the aid promised in “One Day Late” is the
very
definition of cold comfort), but she’s wildly vulnerable at times,
clinging to
a desperate hope that some sort of magic is possible. – Marc
Hirsh
Back to reviews