Phil Lee
(Steady Boy Records/Palookaville Records)
Here's the thing about Phil Lee; he's got three albums out and all three are among the best albums you're likely to come across anytime soon . But experience teaches that whichever one you hear first is the one you will think is his best. That is, until the others will each in turn start to tug at your ear jostling for first place; good for him, good for you. If you don't already have the two albums on Shanachie ("The Mighty King Of Love"; "You Should have Known Me Then") just go ahead and pick up the 3 pack. Guaranteed, you'll have hours of playtime fun going to all the places a run through a Phil Lee album can take you.
So Long, It's Been Good To Know You was produced by Lee along with George Bradfute - some of the album was done at his Tone Chaparral studio in Nashville -and peerless guitarist Richard Bennett who between them have four of the best ears in Nashville. Bennett and Bradfute both play guitar and other instruments on the album and with Fats Kaplan and the rest of a bunch of high caliber players -including Phil himself on guitar and drums - flesh out Lee's Country/Folk/British Invasion influenced music. He can be witty, romantic, irreverent, incisive; usually all and more within the same song ("Lovers Everywhere") and in "Neon Tombstone" ("I met the Dalai Lama; he hit me with a hammer") he's a downright scamp. Through some kind of arcane hocus pocus he can manage to be unsentimental and poignant at the same time. "25 Mexicans" will go straight to your heart like a dart from a Jivaro blowgun. Poignant? To quote Queen Elizabeth II; "‘25 Mexicans' is poignant as a mofo." And you were wondering what she was rocking on that iPod President Obama gave her.
Standout Tracks: '25 Mexicans"; "Sonny George" RICK ALLEN
