Don’t Do Anything BY Sam Phillips Reviewed by Adam D. Miller    Singer-songwriter Sam Phillips has been on quite the musical journey since starting her career as Christian pop artist Leslie Phillips. 1987’s The Turning may as well have been called The Turning Point. Not only did the album mark Phillips’ shift to secular music, more serious songwriting and eclectic sounds, it also marked the beginning of her collaboration with producer T Bone Burnett, who soon would become Phillips’ husband.Burnett continued to produce Phillips under her new moniker of Sam, and his mark could definitely be felt on albums like The Indescribable Wow (1989), Martinis and Bikinis (1994) and Fan Dance (2001). All the while, Phillips’ style was becoming less pop focused and more experimental. Then Phillips and Burnett got divorced, and though the two artists still clearly have a mutual respect for one another (Burnett made room for Phillips’ “Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us” on Robert Plant & Alison Krauss’ Raising Sand, an album he produced), their musical collaboration came to a halt after the completion of A Boot and a Shoe (2004). Sam Phillips’ new album, Don’t Do Anything, is her first to be produced by someone other than T Bone Burnett in twenty-three years. Incidentally, it’s also the first to be produced by Phillips herself. From the double-tracked vocal and overdriven guitar intro to “No Explanations,” we immediately come to realize that Phillips’ production style isn’t a whole lot different from her ex-husband’s. Clearly she has learned more than a few tricks from Burnett over the years, namely a willingness to push the boundaries of sound. Phillips also makes a point of continuing to surround herself with some of the most talented studio musicians out there, including drummer Jay Bellerose, bassist Paul Bryan and guitarist Eric Gorfain. Don’t Do Anything is an album that constantly shifts gears on the listener. The almost hangover-ish soundscape that is “No Explanations” quickly moves into the acoustic “Can’t Come Down,” which comes off like a nursery rhyme (“I tried to pull the rope down from the sky / It wouldn’t come down so I started to climb / I’ve got a great work to do and I can’t come down.” As with the previous track, the instrumentation here is extremely simple; just Bellerose on drums and Phillips on acoustic and electric guitars. Everything from wacky vaudevillian elements and Tin Pan Alley (“Another Song”) to Sonic Youth noise-pop (“My Career In Chemistry”) can be heard within the confines of Don’t Do Anything. It takes the musical territory Phillips started to explore on albums like Fan Dance and A Boot and a Shoe and continues to push the envelope. Musical chaos is counterbalanced with pretty melodies, sometimes within the confines of a single song (“Shake It Down”). Although all twelve songs on this album were written by Sam Phillips, one song, the aforementioned “Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us,” was recorded by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss for their Raising Sand album. Phillips goes about “uncovering” the song towards the end of the album with a more rhythmically complex version than the arrangement sung by Alison Krauss. While it’s hard to call this version better, it definitely sounds a lot more fun. Sam Phillips’ first self-produced album in her twenty-five career comes off as a great success. The songs are consistently good, and bear repeated listening. It’s hard to say whether or not the album improves on the ones she made with T Bone Burnett, but it’s certainly obvious that Phillips remains one of the most consistent and satisfying singer-songwriters out there. |
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