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Remembering James Phillips


30 years ago, on the 31st of July 1995, James Phillips died from complications resulting from a car accident outside Grahamstown earlier in the month. He was in Grahamstown for the National Arts Festival. To commemorate Jame’s life and his influence, we have put together two 15-song mixtapes.

The first includes a cross section of songs from his recordings with Corporal Punishment, Illegal Gathering, the Cherry Faced Lurchers, James Phillips and the Lurchers, as Bernoldus Niemand, and under his own name.

The second includes versions of his songs recorded by others, other musicians’ songs on which he featured, and songs written as tributes to or dedicated to James. The covers are: ‘Shot Down’ – Urban Creep, ‘Afrika is Dying’ – Vusi Mahlasela, ‘Snor City’ – Blues Broers, ‘My Broken Heart’ – Matthew van der Want, ‘Positive’ – Phillipstines, ‘War Song’ – Wendy Oldfield and the Cherry Faced Lurchers, and ‘Snor City’ – Johannes Kerkorrel. The Phillipstines was a James Phillips tribute band especially formed for Concert for James. Similarly, the Cherry Faced Lurchers reformed at the Concert for James with Wendy Oldfield on vocals for ‘Warsong’. Other performers’ songs which featured James Phillips included here are: ‘Paranoia’ – Koos Kombuis (James on backing vocals), ‘Absoluut Goed’ – Joannes Kerkorrel (James plays blues harp), and ‘Bigger Than Jesus’ – Kalahari Surfers (with James on backing vocals). Songs in some way dedicated or in tribute to James include: ‘Home’ – Matthew VD Want and Chris Letcher, ‘Sunny Skies’ – Robin Auld, ‘Baby, Baby’ – Pressure Cookies (The full ‘Swallow’ is dedicated to James), ‘So I Can Die Easy’ – Dorien Du Toit (off the 10 Years of Splashy Fen compilation), and ‘Groove for James’ – The Dynamics.

James Phillips, who never properly received the attention and rewards his talent warranted, was a singer, songwriter, guitarist, keyboard and harmonica player who started out as a musician in the late 1970s, initially with Corporal Punishment and Illegal Gathering before releasing a solo album under the name Bernoldus Niemand, and then going on to form the Cherry Faced Lurchers (which later became James Phillips and the Lurchers).

Corporal Punishment formed in Springs in 1980 with James Phillips (guitar, vocals), Carl Raubenheimer (bass, vocals), Herbie Parkin (rhythm guitar), Mark Bennet (keyboard, vocals) and Chris Hattingh (drums). Hattingh was replaced on drums by Henry Jantzen. Recorded two songs for the WEA Records Six of the Best (1979) compilation: “Victim’s Victim” and “Goddess of Depression”. Released the 7 inch ep “Fridays and Saturdays” in 1980, including four songs: “In The Night”, “Brain Damage”, “Johnny’s Conscience” and “Rock And Rolls Royce”. The band broke up but James Phillips, Carl Raubenheimer and Steve Howells (drums) reformed the band in 1982 to record new versions of original Corporal Punishment songs in the Shifty Records studios. These recordings together with original Corporal Punishment recordings were released on cassette along with the James Phillips and Carl Raubenheimer project, Illegal Gathering, in 1986.

Illegal Gathering formed in Cape Town in 1981 by Carl Raubenheimer (guitar, vocals) and James Phillips (guitar, vocals) with (initially) Brett Murray (bass) and Brian Rath (drums). After an initial attempt at getting things going Murray and Rath left and were replaced with David Ledbetter (bass, guitar, vocals) and Wayne Raath (drums) when the band reconstituted later in 1981. In early 1982 they recorded a few songs, some of which ended up on marginal compilations (For example, “Emphasis Shift” and “Buttons your lip” on the 1983 Regional Jive cassette compilation and “”Johnny Cool” on the 1984 Out of the Blue compilation LP).

In 1983 James Phillips recorded the single “Hou My Vas Korporaal”/”My Broken Heart” using the pseudonym Bernoldus Niemand (Bernoldus Nobody) as a separate musical identity to his work in his own right. He followed this up with another single, “Boksburg Bommer”/“Jody” in 1984 and then released the album Wie Is Bernoldus Niemand in 1985. Having retired the Bernoldus Niemand persona in 1985 he resurrected it for the Afrikaans Voelvry tour in 1989.

The Cherry Faced Lurchers formed in Johannesburg in 1984 with James Phillips (guitar, vocals). Lee Edwards (bass), and Michael de la Hunt (drums) who was replaced by Richard Vos. They released the album Live at Jamesons in 1985 (including the iconic song ‘’Shot Down’), and recorded The Otherwhite Album in the late 1980s but it was not released until 1992.

In 1991 James recorded a series of demos which were later posthumously released as Soul Ou under his own name.

In 1993 the album Sunny Skies was released as James Philips and the Lurchers with James Phillips, Lee Edwards and various new members and session musicians. The Cherry Faced Lurchers developed a cult following in the 1980s and performed live over the years, including the performance of many songs that have not been released on any of their albums.

All of these albums (as well as the Concert for James) can be purchased for download on the Shifty Records page on Bandcamp.

Also look out for two excellent James Phillips documentary films which were both released on DVD:
James Phillips: Famous For Not Being Famous (Lloyd Ross/Shifty, 2006)
The Fun’s Not Over: The James Phillips Story ( Michael Cross, 2018)

Volume 1: Remembering James Phillips

  1. Goddess – Corporal Punishment
  2. Darky – Corporal Punishment
  3. Brain Damage – Corporal Punishment
  4. Johnny Cool – Illegal Gathering
  5. Changing My World – Illegal Gathering
  6. East Rand Blues – Bernoldus Niemand
  7. Hou My Vas Korporaal – Bernoldus Niemand
  8. Toasted Take Aways – Cherry Faced Lurchers
  9. Shot Down – Cherry Faced Lurchers
  10. Heavy Ous – Cherry Faced Lurchers
  11. Detainees – James Phillips
  12. Polling Day – James Phillips
  13. Where Will You Be – James Phillips
  14. The Fun’s Not Over – The Lurchers
  15. Moses – The Lurchers

Volume 2: Honouring, Covering And Featuring James Phillips

  1. Shot Down – Urban Creep
  2. Afrika Is Dying – Vusi Mahlasela
  3. Snor City – Blues Broers (Concert For James)
  4. My Broken Heart – Matthew Vd Want (Concert For James)
  5. Positive – Phillipstines (Concert For James)
  6. War Song – Wendy Oldfield & The Cherry Faced Lurchers (Concert For James)
  7. Snor City – Johannes Kerkorrel
  8. Paranoia – Koos Kombuis
  9. Absoluut Goed – Joannes Kerkorrel (James plays blues harp)
  10. Bigger Than Jesus – Kalahari Surfers (With James doing backing vocals)
  11. Home – Matthew Vd Want And Chris Letcher
  12. Sunny Skies – Robin Auld
  13. Baby, Baby – Pressure Cookies
  14. So I Can Die Easy – Dorien For James (Off Splashy Fen compilation)
  15. Groove For James – The Dynamics

 

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South African Road Songs

For many people music and road trips are synchronous. Hardly ever is a road trip portrayed in a film without accompanying music as a soundtrack to the road stretching out ahead into the unfolding landscape. Music creates travel moods which cannot be captured in any other way. It can make one want to go on a road trip or perhaps it’s the other way round: road trips require music. Certainly, for many music lovers a road trip is cause for long deliberations over what music to pack in the cubby hole or add to a digital playlist. In the days when cassette players were regular features in cars, some of us spent ages putting together mixtapes, searching for that perfect road trip soundtrack. We knew to be careful to avoid songs with lots of ultra-quiet segments which were easily drowned out by the hum of the engine, or with volume swings that would necessitate continual groping for the volume control. One could become an expert in the road trip mixtape.

Clearly, car trip mixtapes can include music about anything and which capture any mood. But for this South African road trip mixtape we have chosen twenty songs by South African musicians which specifically refer to road trips in one form or another. From Bright Blue’s reference to “Taking a trip on a freeway, trying my best to escape” to All Night Radio’s song about driving at dusk, “with my windows open wide, lights are getting brighter as the sun is going down. There’s two more hours until I stop.”

Perhaps the song which most captures the spirit of road trips on this mixtape is “Lifetime On The Road” by Josie Field and Laurie Levine. These two singer songwriters formed a duo and promoted their debut and subsequent album by embarking on several road trip tours, travelling from town to town, day after day. The song captures the freedom of the road: “Rolled down the window, turned on the radio”, but at the same it expresses the drudgery of too much time on the road, travelling from gig to gig: “Left a town I barely know … so many places I’ll never call my own. A lifetime on the road.”

The tv show Going Nowhere Slowly romanticised the South African road trip, as the presenters journeyed from place to place, travelling down tar roads and gravel tracks, often to the accompaniment of music. It is therefore fitting that two songs from that programme are featured here: Liesl Graham’s “All Roads” and Seven Day Story’s “Going Nowhere Slowly” both of which capture the feeling of travelling on the road, music in our ears.

Many of the songs featured here use travel and the road as metaphors for aspects of our journey through life. Juluka often sang in metaphors and in this instance Johnny Clegg sings, “Spirit is the journey, body is the bus, I am the driver from dust to dust … Across this distance, this divide, I will be with you forever.” In “The Road Is Much Longer” Roger Lucey also uses metaphors to express his desire to cross the distance between himself and a loved one, although in this instance he is on the side of the road, trying to thumb a ride: “And now the night’s fallen and I’m nearer to home. And I hear you calling are you feeling alone? Well it’s up and down highways always returning.” The Gereformeerde Blues Band and Big Sky also sing about hitchhiking along the road while the unfortunate character in David Kramer’s “Matchbox Full of Diamonds” has to settle for walking along the road for hours, “under a sky that never cries”, yet he is nevertheless “happy as a hotel in the springtime, when the flowers bloom again.”

Also featured on this mixtape are Jack Hammer’s “Stay At The Wheel”, “Automobile” by the Blues Broers, Baxtop’s “Golden Highway”, Falling Mirror’s “Highway Blues”, “Rearview Mirror Blues” by the Radio Rats, McCully Workshop’s “Fast Car”, “Seat By The Window” by John Kongos, “Kelly’s Song” by Bobby Angel, Johnny Clegg’s “Ride In Your Car” and “Padkos” by Tony Cox, which is his acknowledgment of that very South African road trip tradition: of packing or stopping to buy food for the road.

If you can’t listen to this mixtape in your car we hope you can at least grab some padkos, sit back, imagine the road ahead of you and escape into the music.

  1. Window On The World – Bright Blue
  2. Hopetown 1975 (Stolen Gasoline) – All Night Radio
  3. Stay At The Wheel – Jack Hammer
  4. Ry – Gereformeerde Blues Band
  5. Hitch-Hike – Big Sky
  6. Automobile – Blues Broers
  7. Golden Highway – Baxtop
  8. Highway Blues – Falling Mirror
  9. Rearview Mirror Blues – Radio Rats
  10. Fast Car – Mccully Workshop
  11. Seat By The Window – John Kongos
  12. Spirit Is The Journey – Juluka
  13. Padkos – Tony Cox
  14. Life Time On The Road – Josie Field & Laurie Levine
  15. Kelly’s Song – Bobby Angel
  16. The Road Is Much Longer – Roger Lucey
  17. Ride In Your Car – Johnny Clegg
  18. All Roads – Liesl Graham
  19. Matchbox Full Of Diamonds – David Kramer
  20. Going Nowhere Slowly – One Day Remains