By Arlo Hennings......The following memoir is from a larger story in process

A local Minneapolis musician introduced me to Shawn Phillips in the dingy basement of the Fine Line Music Café in 1994. Rumor was that he had died after a boating accident - a rumor that was upsetting to him. For an artist that had just performed 120 minutes to a sold out nightclub, he was very much alive. Like a performer who had just given it all, I expected to meet a person drenched in sweat. Oddly enough he was dry and calm as a person after meditation. His hair was intact, thinner, and a darker gray. He looked older off stage in the stark white basement light. A pair of crystal clear blue eyes sat oddly mismatched inside what appeared to me to be an unhealthy, chalky-white face. I remembered how shy I was the first time I had met him 25 years ago as a stagehand for a rock festival and was still humbled by the memory of his stardom.

Instead of the 15-year old, drop out Acid Head who helped him down off a tractor at the show, I introduced myself from my most recent job as a former PolyGram Music talent scout. He seemed glad that someone from the music business had stopped in to say hello. Looking to make small talk, I passed him a ketchup bottle and asked, "Where have you've been for the last 25-years?" Between puffs of cigarette smoke, sips of Coca-Cola, and mouthfuls of steak, I got a sketch of his life story. He openly shared his tales of attempted suicide, his mother's suicide, his travels with his novelist father, the CIA Director uncle, stolen music royalties, lost homes, broken marriages, no manager, no agent, and his new love for firefighting. The conclusion being he had suffered a loss of dignity and reputation in his music career. I told him that I understood how he felt. We shared a commonality on that level. "You've survived 25 years at the whims of magnets," I said encouragingly. "You're a hero." Behind the veil of his depression, he still had that magic glow-a noble soul, unique and witty. The lost success of his music career was deeply disturbing however. Four out of 17 albums charted on Billboard's top 100, and two singles made it to Billboard's top 40. All together, he had sold several million records. "An artist still struggling after so much success, isn't right," I told him. "Without a good manager no artist could maintain a national-level career." He asked me then if I would consider being his manager.

The question stunned me at first and I didn't know how to answer. With all the people he must know why would he ask me? I enjoyed his acoustic songs that night but didn't understand his preoccupation with electronic gadgetry. His original blend of combining, folk, rock, and Yoga-like singing was remarkable. And judging by the sold out room, he had die-hard fans. We shook hands outside at his emergency-lighted and siren-decked out touring van. Doubtful about what I could do, I told him it was a possibility and left wondering how the 15-year old Acid Head could save the dead rock star.

A month later, I went to Montreal to meet with him again, walking into the middle of an independently produced new album disaster called the Truth If It Kills. The financier was dying from AIDS. Instead of paying for the recoding studio, the producer pocketed the money and invested it in cocaine. Meanwhile, Shawn was holed-up on his meager advance in a $180 per day hotel suite. His house in LA was months past due in rent, the utilities were being shut off, and his Bulimic ex-model wife was starving because she literally couldn't keep it down. I thought I had seen enough until I saw he had racked up $1,000 in expired parking meter tickets for double-parking outside a video rental store. My first reaction was to drop it, let it go, grow up, but my old dreams and my newer manager instincts stopped me. This was my calling and a manager's job was to fix problems. I stayed, though, older now, entirely yet committed.

Before I could start to dig into questions, I had to decide what to do with The Truth if it Kills. The songs weren't following current pop trends, but the music was good. Eclectic, lacking category, the songs were stylistically Shawn Phillips. I didn't like how the songs were recorded, though. I thought the recording did not represent the quality of a classic Phillips' record and Phillips felt the CD lacked his vision. The project was scrapped, though I couldn't prevent a few CDs from being released in Quebec. Not until I opened Shawn Phillips Dot.Com later in 1994, and began reading the fan mail, did I get the picture of what Phillips' music meant to people. Because of his music, people married, named their children, found salvation, and were enlightened. Upon discovering the web site, fans felt rescued, and thanked me profusely for finding their favorite artist. I was equally enthralled to learn that his fans were an amazingly giving group from around the world, doctors, lawyers, professionals, writers, and dreamers, not what I imagined to be die-hard rock fan-types. Understanding the depth of support Shawn's fans have for his music and respect for him personally, I accepted the incredible responsibility to deliver his resurgence.

Phillips, on the other hand, was a personal mystery. I did not know what motivated him, Fame? Money? Recognition? What were his values? Politics? Religion? How did he feel about being thought of as the Dalai Lama of rock? What was his attitude toward his craft, his work ethic? What made him happy or angry? Would we get along? A manager and their artist are like a married couple, and anyone who has been in a long-lasting relationship understands that relationships take work. "Where there is no fighting, there is no love," the wife of our Italian promoter told us over spaghetti one night. The first and most important thing we had to do together was create trust. Next to love, trust is the highest bond between two people. To place your fate into a stranger's hands is one of scariest decisions anyone can make, especially an artist. Likewise, after rock-n-roll people had robbed me, I had to trust him, too. In Phillips' case, earning his trust wouldn't come easy. He had been disappointed too much. In respect for Phillips' privacy and bound by legal client confidentiality, I can disclose that he was embarrassed, believing that he was forgotten. This belief rubbed his self-confidence and led to depression. Seeking recovery, he took a sabbatical from the music business and donated all of his time as a volunteer firefighter and emergency medical technician. He found salvation to the hole in his soul by sacrificing his life so that others might live.

The hardest part was getting him to listen and follow my advice. His stubbornness was equal to his talent. Together, we hit rock bottom the following year when he suffered triple-by pass heart surgery. Phillips thought his signing days were over. I told him that deciding what to do next was simple-there was only one direction to go and it was up. Getting Phillips to South Africa was my first mission as his new manager. I was his sixth manager during his 35-year music career. At one point, he had a business manager, road manager, personal manager, and a financial manager. But now, since the revenue stream, he was down to me, the all-hats manager. I never did any of the fabled rock manager stuff. I didn't bribe the media, stage scandals, fire musicians, sue people, tell giant venues, like Madison Square Garden, to shove it from my limousine phone, smoke large cigars, or demanded caterers remove the red M&Ms. I managed bookings, filled out forms, like music license agreements, negotiated with major labels to get old work re-released, organized recording projects, decided what music went on a CD, supervised the design of CD covers, organized the music distribution, conducted piracy investigations, arranged interviews, answered fan mail, managed the artist's web site, did day-to-day bookkeeping, and hired publicists, radio promoters, accountants, and attorneys. Therefore, I was the booking agent, record company, artist manager, web master, and on occasion, therapist. A lawyer called what I did a conflict of interest, but I called what I did fearless and selfless.

During the next ten years, Phillips was honored with Quebec and South African Lifetime Achievement music awards. Through the Internet, I reconnected him to lost fans, an integral element in rebuilding his confidence. Domestic and foreign tours grew, one of which is featured here-the first American artist in the new South Africa. I convinced A&M records to license his old records for re-release to Wounded Bird records, including, his first two albums on Columbia, RCA, and Chameleon records. Together, we had rebuilt much of a lost music career. Without a new release however, it was as far as he could go. Phillips was rejected and mostly forgotten by the recording industry. No record company would invest in the making of a new Shawn Phillips album.
In 2000, through fan donations, I raised over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to record his first new CD in the US since 1988. Besides the support of fans, key collaborators Paul Buckmaster and J. Peter Robinson stepped forward and offered their producer and arranger expertise. In addition, an all-star band answered Phillips' call for back-up musicians. Bassist Leland Sklar, drummer Ralph Humphrey, guitarist Mike Miller, and engineer guru Rick Hart donated their time to make a Grammy-level quality production. I came up with the title No Category because I figured it matched the man as much as it described the music.

Back to the tour, my first job as Shawn's manager

South Africa - April 28, 1994: "Look out," Phillips yelled at Theo to drive carefully. Along the highveld roadside a sign read, "Beware -- Rhino Crossing." Theo assured us that there had not been a Rhino anywhere near the highveld toll route for decades. "Like the American buffalo," he explained, "once they were everywhere, now they can only be found in game reserves."

By dusk, the road climbed into the fog-clasped Drakensburg Mountains. Darkness, weaving roads, rain, and cattle slowed our journey further. Hours behind schedule, Phillips and I reached a hand-painted sign, Splashy Fen -- 15k. We arrived at the entrance to the Zulu wilderness area campground and were pounded by a raging storm off the Indian Ocean. Between bursts of lightning, thousands of cars stretched bumper to bumper across the mountainside. Our joy had to wait-our van got stuck in a foot of mud. Word of our arrival made its way to Bart Fokkens, a professional hand glider and the festival manager.

"Sawubona," a tall person said with his face darkened by the hood of a raincoat as he approached the kombie (van) in the darkness. We breathed a sigh of relief. It was Bart. "To roll over the mud you need to deflate the tires and to avoid the bad ruts. Stick to the right, and whatever you do, don't stop," he told us. The next hour passed like a log chute ride at an amusement park. Up and down a grade that would put any four-wheeler to the test, we slid our way past the music tent and on to the musician's cottage, which we were pleased to discover was a warm, three-bedroom, thatched roof cottage. The cottage had more room than was needed, so I invited about a dozen musicians out of the rain to stay with us. Our first night at Splashy Fen was remarkable. Grounds owner, Peter Ferraz, a retired journalist, and his wife and lovely three daughters, put my fears of being caught in some kind of Zulu uprising to rest. They built a fire, passed guitars, wine, and smiles. For hours, many Splashy Fen musicians like Saranti, from the band, Keep the Change entertained us with her original songs about growing up with a family of black servants that lived in her parents back yard shed.

South Africa - April 29, 1994: "Splashy Fen, the Woodstock of South Africa, am I really here?" I said the next morning, looking out the cottage door and at the Dragons Head, the highest peak in the Southern Drakensburg Mountains of Kwa Zulu, Natal, at 10,000 feet above sea level. The mountain air outside the cottage was wet and cold. It had been raining for days. The clouds rolled over the peak like steam rising from a lake of fire. Below Dragons Head, five thousand mixed-race barefoot, soaked-to-the-bone, graying '60's flower children, new age ethnics, professionals, teenagers, and toddlers danced about smoldering campfires. As strange rhythms echoed across the valley floor, their tent doors flapped like Mandela's green flags in the freezing drizzle. Exploring the campgrounds, I discovered the food gardens, (a group of tents with outdoor grills) which included some South African delights like Bunny Chow, Zulu Porridge, and beer. After I choose a Bunny Chow, Phillips met mud clad, smiling fans. "Far out," a young person said, stumbling into Phillips. His companion just stared, stoned. Recognizing the American artist they offered him a toke of their Durban poison stick (marijuana), which Phillips declined saying, "Besides water, I never put anything into my body before I perform." (Marijuana, called dagga by the locals, is an unofficial export of the Natal province, which accounts for its popularity and its abundance. Earlier that morning the police had set up a roadblock in front of the festival entrance and arrested dozens of people who had dagga. Phillips and I were puzzled by the busts: despite all the heavily publicized rumor of civil war, how is it the police could afford to spare so many officers over a few harmless joints?)

South Africa - April 30, 1994: I went to the information tent to check out the local South African music scene. Guitars For Africa - 3rd Ear Music, a compilation cassette featuring 24 of South Africa's finest guitarists was as good as any I heard in the states. One outstanding performance on the tape was by Sipho Mchunu, who demonstrated a unique guitar technique called, Zulu guitar: a special tuning/strumming system. There was also a festival program guide that told about the beneficiaries of the festival: the Wildlife Society, Ladysmith Black Mambazo Trust, the Underburg Himeville Education Foundation and DASH, the Drakensburg African Schools Organization. Following the melody of Joni Mitchell's song Woodstock, we discovered the first of 30 performing groups - Saranti's band Keep The Change. They sang, "By the time I get to Splashy Fen." Keep the Change also created an original sound by combining elements of jazz, folk, and rock with their own Euro/American pop style. The group reminded me of the Roaches meets Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Another highlight of Splashy Fen was Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The legendary 10-man a cappella group that sang on Paul Simon's Grammy winning album Graceland filled the music tent with their authentic, chain-gang gospel with voices deeper than a South African diamond mine. In approval, the crowd saluted the group as heroes, exploding in applause. The University of Natal African Music Ensemble was another group that caught our ear. Using hand made, otherworldly looking instruments, the group created a rich, Afro-tapestry of plucked, strummed and shaken traditional folk songs from Uganda, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The Hairy Legged Lentil Eaters put on an unforgettable show. They combined banjo, violin and electric guitar to create new mixtures of folk and political satire.

South Africa - April 30, 1994: Later that night, it was Phillips turn to perform. At 6,000 feet, combined with heavy fog, Phillips found it hard to sing and keep his guitars tuned. Regardless of the elements, he performed a couple of his favorite songs from each of his 17 albums. Songs like Steel Eyes, Ballad of Casey Deiss and Woman brought cheers from the crowd. Phillips finished his last show at Splashy Fen with the Peace Song. Taking a final bow he raised his arms as if he were about to fly, and said in Zulu, "Hambe Kahle" (Go well, go with God).

After the show, Marks, who was a soundman at Woodstock, spoke about the days not too long ago when audiences of mixed race in South Africa were prohibited by law. "So, when bands had black and white musicians like the Flames and Freedom's Children, there had to be one show for black people and another show for white people. White and black musicians in the same band were not permitted to play on the same stage together. The way around that one was for the black musicians to play behind a curtain when they were entertaining a white audience, and the other way around when the audience was black."
I began to realize what a cultural embargo meant. South Africa had one of the largest and most vibrant music scenes in the world, but no one new it. Because there was no South African export, record companies and businesses worldwide took advantage of the cultural embargo by paying the artists less or not paying them at all. Marks was never paid by American publishers for his apartheid protest hit song Master Jack. "When I called to ask for my royalties in the states the publisher called me a racist and hung up."

During the music festival, Shawn and I hung out backstage and spoke with many South African musicians. Zakes Myataza, a Zulu musician who had not stopped playing his guitar since we arrived, said, "My grandmother taught me to throw harmonies like bones: both tell the future."
Enoch Lengoasa, a Xhosa percussionist remarked: "Every tribe has its own record of dreams: ours is the praise song."
The first cultural event of the new South Africa was leeker cracker (super good). Hundreds of musicians performed nearly every type of music imaginable. Over 5,000 people gladly listened. There was no violence. Blacks danced with whites and celebrated their new democracy.

copyright, Arlo Hennings, 2004
Special editorial thanks goes to Shawn Phillips, Tina Perpich and Suz Croutwater.
In addition, thanks to John Rouleau for feedback

this story is a chapter in:
Tales from the Rock 'N' Roll Highway
Marley Brant
ISBN: 0-8230-8437-X
Watson-Gupitll / Billboard
May 2004  

Copyright Shawn Phillips, all right reserved.