Sister Sam Goes Before Us

MUSIC NOTES j.d. buhl

Sister Sam Goes Before Us

yelped in “Expectations,” and she left the strictures of evangelical Christian music behind.

She and Burnett married in 1989 and together made seven albums presenting Sam as a quirky singer/songwriter with a fondness for wry observation and dry, While she can sing prettily, Sam Phillips’ crackling production. Her songs were is not a pretty voice. The way grace is often little more than strings of words, conveyed through her instrument is more avoiding the big verse/chorus message along the lines of what ColleenTownsend with aphoristic wisdom. Some could be heard as precursors to Alanis Morissette; Evans wrote about forgiveness: others were as tender as a Wesley hymn.

Don’t Do Anything is the first CD she Forgiveness does not allow a fool has produced herself, the marriage sadly to persist in folly…or lies to go being over. It works as a whole, rather unchallenged…or prejudice to than a collection of interesting pieces, flourish unopposed. Forgiveness thanks to its short songs and textural is reality dealing sensibly with consistency. reality — love with a rugged face.

Phillips’ musical work is that of “reality dealing sensibly with reality.” Hers can be the voice of the most encouraging girlfriend (ask Gilmore Girls devotees) or a romantic prophet. Both voices are present on her newest album, Don’t Do Anything (Nonesuch, 2008), which reflects on the vagaries of love and the perseverance of faith.

While some fans play the same tiresome “Is she still a Christian?” game played with Bob Dylan, it is of some interest to consider Phillips’ CCM roots. If Amy Grant was the girl any guy would want to take home to his parents, Leslie Phillips was the weird chick with whom he’d only be friends. But she had it going on, considering the synthesizer-and-drum machine confines of Christian music in the ’80s. She wrote her own songs and betrayed an interest in rock melody beyond new wave radio fare. After three releases on Word/Myrrh, things took a turn with The Turning in 1987. Producer T Bone Burnett understood the kind of records she wanted to make; he shared her interest in sounds as well as songs.

Welcomed by secular listeners, Phillips turned to them, officially adopting her old nickname, Sam.“I can’t breathe!” she

Love with a rugged face walks streets in “Under the Night,” where in the dark it can see “what the light can’t find.”

The revealing of things, often those whose existence was not even suspected prior to their outing, is a theme relating these 12 songs: simple slivers of reflection, tiny meditations flying by on the dark breeze.

All along, her probings into folly and lies find forgiveness at hand. The album begins with the warning, “This is bigger than you and the part of the truth you trust,” and concludes with an assurance that “The splendor / the holiness of life / that reveals itself / convert[s] blind fate / into destiny.”

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After the release of the album (her second on Nonesuch), Phillips set out on a seven-gig Borders tour last summer.

On a chilly night in San Francisco, the artist and I chatted before she took the stage. Signing my LP of The Indescribable Wow (1988), she exclaimed, “Oh! I love vinyl. It’s so big!” She remains as lovely and funny as ever, a charming combination of Lucille Ball and Bette Davis, but in holey thrift-store fashions, knee-high boots, and unbrushed hair. What’s not to love? Appearing beside her was Eric Gorfain, the young multi-instrumentalist who recorded and arranged much of the album. He played his Stroh violin (neck and strings amplified through a silver horn) and three-quarters guitar through tiny miked amps (“All of the distortion with half the volume,” Sam quipped) while she strummed a six-song set. She then sat down to sign copies of the CD, a line of fans winding round the record racks.

Nice work, if you can get it. (Learn more at SamPhillips.com.)

Fans of Raising Sand, the Robert PlantAlison Krauss collaboration produced by Burnett, already know Phillips’ “Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us.” Having “lost the love I never found,” a lonely soul sets out, acknowledging the guidance of Sister Rosetta Tharpe (see “I’m Shouting!” by Al Tizon in the November/December 2007 issue of PRISM) and her “music up above.” Tharpe’s “Up Above My Head” pivots on the belief that “there is a heaven somewhere.”

But music is not the only thing up above her head; there is also trouble in the air.“I know I’ve loved you too much,” sings Phillips’ protagonist, having stood in her “broken heart all night long.” “I’ll go on alone, to get through.”The song is delivered plaintively by Krauss, her fiddle lending a floating quality to such abandonments as “the sight of my heart” and the “sound of hope” having left her again.

Phillips’ own version is more shattered and dreamlike. However, the accordianfold liner notes in Don’t Do Anything leave

out the lyric’s crux, a line Sam nonetheless sings with the lightest touch.

“Looking for the lamb that’s hidden in the cross, the finder’s lost.” Let the “Is she

still a Christian?” crowd chew on that one while those who have loved too much, and now must go on alone, do so with Sam Phillips’ music up above their heads.

J.D. Buhl appears in the music issue of Geez Magazine (Fall 2008). He teaches junior high English and literature at Queen of All Saints School in Concord, Calif.

Lost and Found continued from page 11.

A Sacred Opportunity continued from page 22.

ness and transformative change. Befriending them and witnessing their change can foster change in you and in your community.”

Sean Pica, Mark Wallace, Sean Johnson, Ricardo Sheppard, and thousands of other men and women have been powerfully transformed through their prison experience. Like Isaiah, they have been touched by the seraph’s live coal and experienced its life-giving power by hearing the healing words: “Your guilt has departed, and your sin is blotted out.” Not only have they changed for their own sake but they have also answered the divine call, with the power of conversion gleaming in their eyes: “Here we are, Lord. Send us.” n

ment. There’s an opportunity to build a relationship and influence. I take it slowly, step by step, and once there’s trust anything becomes possible. Someone asked one of the men why he trusted me, and his response was, ‘Well, she trusted me first.’”

Her approach for building trust is remarkably simple. “I ask them how they are doing and inquire about their families.

I just try to normalize the situation as much as possible. I ask them when their birthday is. I record their birthdays and then bring them a card—that usually blows their mind! If I hear there has been a death or illness in their family, I will bring a sympathy card. Just doing the normal things, things you and I on the outside take for granted, makes huge inroads in the prison. Keeping promises is also crucial.”

What is it that draws Thomas back to the prison week after week, year after year? “The Bible makes it clear that prisoners are important to God,” she explains. “And there is a special reward for visiting with prisoners, as mentioned in Matthew 25. The way I interpret it is that God sees prison as a sacred place. I’m still learning to understand that, but I’ve come to see prison as a sacred place, too.When you get locked up you’re at the bottom of the barrel; there’s nowhere to run.

So most inmates then turn their attention to God.That is how many of them cope with prison and actually find spiritual freedom they might not otherwise find on the streets.

“God called me to this work,” she continues. “He placed the ministry in my heart. I see my own life being transformed daily, so the ministry just keeps drawing me deeper and deeper in. Having seen the evidence of God moving, doing miracles in the prison, I don’t want to do anything else. I worked for a big bank for many years and then for a secular nonprofit, but I left that to follow this calling, and it’s changed my life completely.” n

Learn more about Rehabilitation Through the Arts at RTA-arts.org.

Dr. Hans B. Hallundbaek (hanshall@optonline.net) has spent many years as a prison volunteer and educator. Besides writing on social and criminal justice issues, he serves as a Presbyterian minister and teaches legal aspects of corrections management at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.

The Correct Way continued from page 19. not followers, so when they get out they can stay out.

As in every community we live in, security should be paramount to deter lawlessness. On the outside, we expect our caretakers—police, firefighters, educators, etc.—to be qualified.

Inside prison it should be no different. If the guards aren’t qualified, it defeats the purpose.

Men and women should leave prison equipped to do something valuable — tailoring, computer literacy, electrical work, plumbing. Prisons should be in partnership with the community — if you have an A student coming out of a plumbing program, a local company should be waiting in the wings to hire him right away. He’s not used to life on the outside anymore, or how the world has changed. It’s intimidating without a lot of help from the community. n

Sharon Gramby-Sobukwe is department chair of Eastern University’s School of Leadership and Development (NGOLeader.org), which offers organizational leadership and economic/community development programs in South Africa in a hybrid (online/annual residency) format. Kristyn Komarnicki is editor of PRISM.

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