Noli Me Tangere

The Greatness of Grant

One of my ideas for this blog is that it might become a place for Abe to pontificate on things Abe loves. For example, there are probably half a dozen unknown bands that I could write about. There are some movies, books, cars, guitars, that I could list. For now, I'll leave unanswered, "why should anyone care what Abe thinks about these things?" and begin a series on why Grant Lee Phillips and his body of work represent perhaps the brightest light on a dim pop music landscape. I shall call this series, "Buffalo Roam: Essays on the Greatness of Grant".

I'll get to why he's a freakin' genius later, but first a quick update on the guy. This story is featured in the most recent Paste Magazine and was a pleasure to write, as I've been a huge fan of his music. Turns out he's a really nice guy, though I think I offended him when I suggested he stop using his voice as a crutch and see how his songs stand up with say, Dylan's voice. I meant it as a compliment, but I guess words get muffled when you're kissing butt.

With his old band, Grant Lee Phillips was always something of a throwback. Mr. Phillips and his mates made up a semi-eponymous musical outfit that hovered on the periphery of the mid-90’s grunge movement, garnering critical praise and cult status. While the airwaves were awash in fuzzy guitars, Grant Lee Buffalo were quietly filling up their records with banjos, pump organs, and parlor pianos. As the songwriter and frontman, Phillips sang about old-world themes in an old-soul voice, in songs that revealed a love of history and storytelling.

Buffalo split in 1999 and Phillips the solo artist has since forged a distinct path that’s taken him to surprising places. His latest album, the just-released Virginia Creeper, is in many ways a return to his roots, drawing heavily on both personal and musical history. The result is a collection Phillips calls his most genuine, personal effort yet. Throughout Creeper, Phillips digs deeply into the rich soil of history and grows an album that, as the title suggests, meanders and weaves like a vine. Or like a good story.

It should certainly be a salve for those fans who lamented his foray into the more electronic music forms on his previous outing. 2001’s Mobilize departed sharply from his work with GLB and found Phillips abandoning anachronism to experiment with a litany of keyboards and effects, all driven by the drum programming of co-producer Carmen Rizzo.

“You could definitely say that Mobilize was a departure from the music that I’ve been associated with, and quite possibly the music that is most natural to me,” he concedes. Creeper, then, is a return to form, a revival of the sounds and strains of his early work and the music of previous generations. Energized by the organic resonances of piano, fiddle, banjo, and upright bass, Phillips and ensemble recorded each song live to tape, eschewing the convenience and (some say) sterility of digital recording. As a result, the sounds are warm, rustic, and lend potency to Phillips’ southern, botanical metaphors.

And while Phillips’ previous solo releases, 2000’s Ladies Love Oracle and Mobilize, were largely solitary efforts, Creeper finds him once again in a collaborative spirit. There are thirteen contributing musicians listed in the credits, including old friends Bill Bonk (accordion), Jon Brion (ukulele) and Greg Leisz (dobro, pedal steel, mandolin). There’s even a string quartet.

So was this an intentional antidote to the shimmering, electronic textures of Mobilize?

“Having toured on my own over the last year with the guitar alone, it sort of put me in touch with my roots all over again, and reminded me of what I love about playing a simple song, and the act of telling a story in the context of a song,” Phillips says of his evolution.
Indeed, about half of the songs on Creeper are pure story songs, centered on rich but fragmentary characters like the haunting legend he hatches in “Josephine of the Swamps” and the piano-tendered narrative of “Susanna Little”.

The latter piece takes on new significance in light of the author’s Creek Indian heritage. “I’ve always been fascinated with the history of native Americans,” he confesses. “In fact this song is sort of a chronicle of some real people within my family.” But Phillips is quick to point out that this tale of cultural loss, murder, and redemption is not merely a quaint family story.

“It’s a story that’s still aching to be told,” he says of the Native Americans’ plight. “This is just more of an insider, personal way of doing so, almost just a little folk tale. But it doesn’t come down to the story of one person as much as it is the story of so many.”

Phillips is a natural storyteller, so his involvement with TV and Film should come as no surprise. He participated in the Sundance Composer’s Lab in 2002 and has scored the music for “ZigZag” (starring Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo) and “Easy”, an entrant in the Sundance Film Festival this year. And thanks to some friends in Hollywood, Phillips has landed a recurring role on the WB hit Gilmore Girls as the town troubadour. The creators of the show (who were fans of his work with Grant Lee Buffalo) offered him the role, which affords him wider exposure since his music is used on the show and included in the soundtrack. In Phillips’ mind, the exposure is mutual.

“The Gilmore Girls have turned me on to some new people, and I know a few folks have tuned in to the show just to answer the question, ‘What? He’s doing what?’” he says with a laugh. But Phillips sees music as the creative outlet which has kept him from becoming a filmmaker rather than a means of becoming one:

“I think my urge to tell stories, and to weave together imagery is satisfied in songwriting,” he says and goes on to clarify. “When you take a novel and turn it into a film, you have to kind of create a shorthand, and songwriting is very much like that. You’ve got three minutes to shove it all in.”

Phillips kicks off a nationwide tour in late February in support of Virginia Creeper.

Posted by aokie at April 1, 2004 09:44 PM