TL-DR Dept. "No-one else is in his tree" - Shawn Phillips

The title of Shawn Phillips '64 debut album I'm A Loner is both a cliché typical of those Guthrie-inspired guitar-slinger times, and a larger truth about the man. He's still out there, over a half-century later, and he's still doing the thing we can only describe as his own - because there's nobody else doing it.

The debut and the following year's Shawn were recorded (possibly during the same sessions) in London by Denis Preston, the UK's first independent record producer. Both albums featured show tunes, Leadbelly material and a tentative handful of his own compositions among the more generic trad. arrs. And he was already an unusually accomplished guitarist, with a unique twelve-string style.

I'm A Loner's bonus tracks here (and only here) include a '64 promo. Extras on Shawn include Summer Came, whose fuller pop production seems to place it during '66, and the remarkable sitar-soaked Stargazer and Woman Mind, which encapsulate 1967 as well as anything. He studied sitar under Ravi Shankar, and, until I hear different, was the first musician to use the instrument in a pop context, appearing on and co-writing many early Donovan recordings. The Celtic Bard, with the big-hearted generosity for which the Scots are adored world-wide, gave him minimal to no credit. "I would play guitar, and he would make up words ... who would you say wrote the music? His name is Leitch. You can figure the rest out as to who got the money" [Phillips interviewed by Scott Itter].

Phillips gave George Harrison sitar lessons before his Fabness nabbed Shankar himself, and sang backing vox on Lovely Rita. During this period he also studied yoga with the same intensity he'd given the sitar, and his breath control gave him a startling range and control outside the range of any other pop singer. He's featured briefly in the Woodstock movie, looking every inch the hippie mystic, demonstrating yoga. He was also making contacts everywhere he went, with the result that he was able to call on Traffic and Eric Clapton for his first real solo album, the amazing Contribution from 1970. And for me, as for many of his fans, this is where my Shawn story begins.

Peanuts Molloy, in a comment, says "what you like most, what you don’t like so much, it can all be down to time and place" and my time for this was Personal Best in lysergic intake. Take a look at the sleeve, then compare and contrast with the covers above. This is what LSD does. Yikes! There are over fifty photographs of him on the sleeve and the lyric insert, I know because I counted them, because that's the kind of thing you did back then, with no internet. That and/or take drugs. Which Shawn had certainly been doing, with the fervor he brought to the sitar and yoga.

The album doesn't use psychedelic motifs or decoration - this was 1970. The freakiest the production gets is a wash of phasing and a touch of sitar. But it resonated with my psychedelic experience through its lyrical imagery, mood, and his incredible soaring vocals. "In this house of visions, on top of the hill, the glass has turned to rust ... light will splinter through open clouds, and you'll look straight in a face like the sun" - 'L' Ballade. Now that is breathtaking taken straight, but under the right conditions, it blows your head off. I'm still looking for mine.

Recorded at Trident, it marked the beginning not only of his Imperial Period at A&M, but also a long relationship with the brilliant Paul Buckmaster. And we just have time to squeeze another Scot into the story. Listen to Phillips' extraordinary phased 12-string rhythm solo in the sublime Withered Roses. Now listen to Al Stewart's extraordinary phased 12-string rhythm solo in Nostradamus, recorded three years later. Al and Don: say thanks, Shawn. No, wait - I'll say it for you: thanks, Shawn.


I've taken the liberty of resequencing the tracks. I never liked the way Not Quite Nonsense broke the high created by L Ballade, which itself appeared too soon. You can always listen to the original.