Gene Phillips

A West Coast program stalwart who appeared on an array of leap blues waxings through the later ’40s and early ’50s, guitarist Gene Phillips faded from watch even prior to the dawn of rock and roll & move. Any significant collector from the Bihari brothers’ budget-priced Crown albums (you understand, those with those ubiquitous cheesy cover illustrations by musician “Fazzio”) ought to be intimately acquainted with Phillips’s LP — it’s one of the better Crown acquisitions it is possible to perhaps make (specifically since there is no Compact disc equivalent however). The T-Bone Walker-influenced Phillips documented thoroughly for the Biharis’ Contemporary Imprint from 1947 through 1950. His often-ribald leap blues gems for the company included “Big Hip and legs,” “Fatso,” “VERY CHEAP,” “Hey Today,” along with a edition of Big Costs Broonzy’s witty regular “Only a Fantasy.” Phillips’s bandmates had been one of the royalty from the L.A. picture: trumpeter Jake Porter, saxists Marshall Royal, Maxwell Davis, and Jack port McVea, and pianist Lloyd Glenn had been frequently readily available. Phillips came back the favour in Porter’s case, performing and playing in the trumpeter’s 1947 schedules for Imperial. Following a 78 of his very own for Imperial in 1951 (“She’s Suit ‘n Body fat ‘n Great”), Phillips bowed from the documenting wars like a leader having a solitary 1954 work for Combo, “Seafood Man,” supported by McVea’s music group.