Shawn Phillips
Second Contribution

It is incredible how Shawn Phillips has remained an enigmatic figure compared to the importance he had in the music scene of the '70s.

Exceptional songwriter, talented musician able to master the acoustic and electric guitar, the 6 and 12-string, the Gibson "double neck" and the sitar (one of the first to use it after seeing Ravi Shankar live). Capable of an impressive vocal range from baritone to contralto, one of those voices that gives you chills to listen to, ideal for that whirlwind of folk-rock-blues-jazz-pop and progressive that dresses his songs.

Comparisons are always harmful, but here the spirit of Jeff Buckley of "Grace" hovers... twenty years earlier! In fact, "Second Contribution" dates back to 1970, during the "Italian period" of this Texan globetrotter who settled in Positano after breaking the collaboration in London with Donovan (it seems that the famous "Season of the Witch" was his).

The first side of the album is an absolute masterpiece, almost a medley. It starts quietly with "She Was Waitin' for Her Mother at the Station in Torino and You Know I Love You Baby But It's Getting Too Heavy to Laugh" (otherwise synthetically known as "Woman of the Land"), here the voice doesn’t need instruments to create an atmosphere that you immediately understand will grab you for the rest of the album. Shawn begins extending his vocal cords supported by piano and bass, and then there's no escape... you just have to lose yourself in the maelstrom of the voice and orchestral crescendo. Drum break, syncopated bass, and off with "Keep on", Shawn invites Mama to come back home, here she won't have to wander anymore, the horn arrangements by Paul Buckmaster seamlessly flow into the electric guitar riff of "Sleepwalker" and then into the beautiful "Song for Mr. C".

Here you completely surrender to the voice that pushes forward bringing along "...the trumps and the down home dumps", an exciting r&b crescendo that finds its logical peace in the folk of "The Ballad of Casey Diess", from which one can sense the collaboration of Phillips with Traffic of "John Barleycorn". What to say: a first side that leaves you breathless with its beauty. But the second lays you out immediately with a "Song for Sagittarians" that you wish you had danced close to the girl who broke your heart before leaving forever and then after a "Lookin' Up Lookin Down" that invites you to take it easy while he, Shawn, goes strong, with the hard voice that then spills into a glass-shattering falsetto. The other tracks on the album are mostly instrumental with great intensity and the concluding "Steel Eyes" played with the 12-string from the cover refers back to the collaboration with Donovan.

A cult and talented artist who still plays today at various festivals around the world and has his following, one who has only and always played his music without bowing to the rules of the market or record companies and perhaps for this reason has never had the success he deserves.