As 2010 comes to an end, we are taking a look back at some of our favorite posts of the year by our guest editors.
It’s not as much of a journey from religious music to Jerry Lee Lewis and the Die Hard movie franchise as you might think. For someone who began her recording career as a Christian artist, Sam Phillips has had a very secular professional life. Born Leslie Ann Phillips in 1962, she cut her last album of religious music, produced by future husband T Bone Burnett, in 1987. (Phillips and Burnett divorced in 2004.) Phillips then jumped ship to the Virgin label in 1989 and began recording albums of thoughtful-yet-stirring music to document her new life as Sam Phillips. Critics’ fave Fan Dance, her 2001 debut record for Nonesuch Records, featured lovely string arrangements by the legendary Van Dyke Parks. Phillips is currently in the middle of a year-long multimedia project called Long Play and also has a tune placed in Oscar-contending film Crazy Heart with Jeff Bridges. In addition, Phillips will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with her.
Phillips: I miss digging big holes in my back yard and making a mud-pie bakery. I realize that dirt and I have been at odds since 1994, when I was in the third Die Hard movie, and crew members were required to throw dirt on me take after take in one scene. It took me a couple of days to get the dirt out of my hair because it had attached itself to the hair gel they had put on me. Good dirt is hard to find, and it is great to feed plant dirt with used tea leaves, vegetable and fruit scraps when you can. Video after the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0en00_CSM4
