Bear Family Records
2008
Sea Of Love
About This Album
Hard to believe, but Bear Family's 2008 "Sea of Love" is the first CD compilation of Phil Phillips recordings -- a disservice to a singer responsible for one of the great slow dance singles of the rock & roll era, "Sea of Love." As rock & roll as that may be -- Robert Plant revived it for his post-Zeppelin oldies fantasia the Honeydrippers and had a hit with it too -- the silken sighs in its sound hint that Phillips was an uptown crooner, a suspicion borne out by this lengthy compilation. Phillips walked the fine, sometimes imperceptible, line between uptown R&B and stiff, starched pop, always easing into a song, never attacking it. Unlike some '50s crooners, he wasn't hammy, he was friendly, and that goes a long way when the material gets syrupy or corny, as it often did during the course of his Khoury/Mercury recordings, chronicled here in their entirety, complete with nine unreleased tracks (two being alternates of "Don't Leave Me" and "Stormy Weather"). Sometimes, he was undone by the sheer inanity of the material -- neither Sinatra or Sam Cooke could have given a trifle like "I Love to Love You" or the cutesy bop "Sweet Affection" a shred of listenability -- but he often kept his dignity even at moments like this.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18 and 19)

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