RICHARD HAYES PHILLIPS is a lyric poet and a wandering minstrel, a link to a bygone era. A multifaceted musician, he sings, writes lyrics and music, plays guitar, mandolin, kalimba and harmonica, and does all of it beautifully. All of his material is original or traditional. He sings no cover tunes. Most of his repertoire consists of original material, featuring beautiful melodies, intricate instrumental backing, and lyrics with a purpose. His lyrics are works of art; the meter is never awkward, the rhyme is never forced, and the meaning is never obscure. His themes are timeless and universal; most of his writings are love songs, celebrations of nature, broadside ballads, or social satires. He sings with a clear voice, and his words are easy to hear. While his writing is deeply influenced by the songwriters of the sixties, he is equally indebted to the great poets and traditional musicians of the English-speaking world. Nearly half of his repertoire consists of traditional music, including folk songs from Scotland, Ireland, England and the southern Appalachians, and Negro spirituals from the deep south.
While he is self-taught as a performing artist, his mother was a music teacher, and there have been musicians in his family for at least five generations. He began performing as a teenager, and he has appeared in public a thousand times in restaurants, coffeehouses, Irish pubs, and churches. He has performed extensively in upstate New York, western New England, northern New Mexico, southern California, and also in Ireland and Scotland. He spends his summers in the Adirondack Mountains where he clears and maintains hiking trails using hand tools. He is resident bard at Camp Solitude on the west shore of Lake Placid, and has been the house musician at many venues, including Schemmy's Restaurant in Rhinebeck, New York, the Wawbeek Resort and the Foote Rest Café at Saranac Lake, New York, and the Apple Tree Restaurant in Taos, New Mexico, where he appeared 400 times. He has recorded eight CDs, and is on the website of North Country Public Radio (www.northcountrypublicradio.org/arts/concert_trad.html)
Concert review: Excerpts from Adirondack Daily Enterprise, 1996, "Songwriter chased by bear and lives to sing about it," by Shir Filler:
LAKE PLACID - On a recent Saturday at the Great American Bagel Factory here, Richard Hayes Phillips looked positively elfin behind his guitar in his green forest ranger hat and wire-rimmed glasses. Playing and singing valiantly despite the hordes of tourists pushing past for their cappuccinos, Phillips did manage to capture an audience that listened and applauded as he played. ... Phillips has just published a book of his song lyrics, titled "Lyric Poetry." "I find a lot of people don't catch the lyrics when I'm playing," he said. Lyrics are an important element of his songs, which are often politically, environmentally and socially conscious, even when they are love songs. ... "All my songs are true," says Phillips. He considers himself a wandering minstrel, plying his trade with guitar, mandolin, kalimba (an African instrument made of wood and strips of metal that are plucked with the thumb) and harmonica in restaurants and coffeehouses wherever he goes. ... He loves the Adirondacks. He says he's been all over the country, and these mountains are the most beautiful he's seen. But, he says, to live here you either have to be wealthy or work for the wealthy. He had always shunned tourists, but while in Taos, he says, he finally realized how the game worked. With this new knowledge, he's been able to work and make a living in the Adirondacks where so many before him have failed.
Notice: from Adirondack Life, 2002 Annual Guide, page 69:
We blundered through several trail junctions, following hunches, and, to our astonishment, emerged on the Camp Solitude lawn. ... Over coffee we were treated to a concert of original folksongs by guest Richard Phillips, who accompanied himself on an African thumb piano. One of the songs was unforgettably poignant -- an ode to a bag of abandoned books. (www.campsolitude.com)
Notice: from The Rake, Minneapolis, Minnesota, April 2004:
He faced down the giants at BMI and lived to tell the tale (see The Rake's November 2003 issue), so acoustic troubador and self-described "throwback" Richard Hayes Phillips is once again out on the concert trail. With a guitar, a 1917 mandolin, and an alto kalimba strapped to his back, he's headed our way with a fistful of ballads. There's no excuse to miss the man's true, pure tenor, as he's making seven appearances at local coffeehouses this month. (www.rakemag.com)
Visit Richard Hayes Phillips' website at www.northnet.org/minstrel, where his concert information and all of his lyrics are on display. Contact: 4 Fisher Street, Canton, NY 13617, (315) 379-0820. E-mail: richardhayesphillips@yahoo.com
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