Grant Lee Phillips Little Moon CD

Personnel: Grant Lee Phillips (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, 12-string guitar, baritone guitar, banjo); Eric Gorfain, Daphne Chen (violin); Alma Fernandez (viola); Richard Dodd (cello); Jason Thor (trombone, bass trombone, tuba); Jamie Edwards (piano, Clavinet, Wurlitzer organ); Jay Bellerose (drums, percussion).
Audio Mixer: Ryan Freeland.
It makes sense that golden-throated alt-crooner Grant Lee Phillips should join the ranks of fellow enigmatic 20th century underground rock icons like Robyn Hitchcock, Nick Lowe, and John Doe at Yep Roc. Though he may have traded the brooding Americana of his Grant Lee Buffalo trio for the safer shores of adult alternative pop/rock since disbanding the unit in the mid-'90s, his output has been no less worthy of praise. On his fifth outing, Phillips draws the bulk of material out of the positive vibes of new fatherhood. Tunes like "Good Morning Happiness" and "Violet" virtually skip on by in their optimism, yet Phillips never lets things get too saccharine, preferring earnestness over frivolity. Peppered throughout are snapshots of his career to date (the sleepy "Nightbirds" and serpentine title track hark back to Grant Lee Buffalo's COPPEROPOLIS days and the vaudevillian swagger of "The Sun Shines On Jupiter" echoes JUBILEE, but never are they exercises in revisionism. Whether it's the Dixieland horns that bookend "It Ain't the Same Old Cold War Harry" or the achingly beautiful string section that runs through "Blind Tom" like the Mississippi in summer, it's all signature Grant Lee Phillips, and he can still jump from a baritone to a tenor like a spring hare.
It makes sense that golden-throated alt-crooner Grant Lee Phillips should join the ranks of fellow enigmatic 20th century underground rock icons like Robyn Hitchcock, Nick Lowe, and John Doe at Yep Roc. Though he may have traded the brooding Americana of his Grant Lee Buffalo trio for the safer shores of adult alternative pop/rock since disbanding in the mid-'90s, his output has been no less worthy of praise. On his fifth outing, Phillips draws the bulk of material out of the positive vibes of new fatherhood. Tunes like "Good Morning Happiness" and "Violet" virtually skip on by in their optimism, yet Phillips never lets things get too saccharine, preferring earnestness over frivolity. Peppered throughout are snapshots of his career to date (the sleepy "Nightbirds" and serpentine title track hark back to GLB Copperopolis days and the vaudevillian swagger of "The Sun Shines on Jupiter" echoes Jubilee), but never are they exercises in revisionism. Whether it's the Dixieland horns that bookend "It Ain't the Same Old Cold War Harry" or the achingly beautiful string section that runs through "Blind Tom" like the Mississippi in summer, it's all signature Grant Lee Phillips, and he can still jump from a baritone to a tenor like a spring hare. ~ James Christopher Monger