Discovering Unknown Gems From Phillips

It’s amazing how you can admire a singer for years, only to one day discover you haven’t even heard some of her best work. That’s one reason retrospectives can be so rewarding.

You might, for instance, buy this two-disc set to hear again Phillips’ hit versions of such varied songs as the country-flavored “Release Me” or the Beatles ballad “And I Love Her” (reworked here as “And I Love Him”).

But the selections that are likely to really catch your ear are several that never made it onto the pop or R&B; charts, starting with a soul-stirring version of Charlie Rich’s gritty, gospel-edged blues standard “No Headstone on My Grave.”

The musical backing on the song is a bit disjointed, but Phillips’ vocal captures marvelously the song’s bittersweet resolve. Holding and bending notes, she takes a full 10 seconds to deliver the title line in her biting style.

But my favorite track is a 1965 recording called “I Saw Me,” a scorching blues tune written by June Davis that talks about a woman who acknowledges her own role in the breakup of her marriage. It includes the lines:

Yes, I looked into my eyes

And saw the reason why he cries . . .

For the first time tonight

I saw me.

Listening to the single now, it’s hard to imagine that it wasn’t a hit, especially considering it was released by Atlantic Records, home of such R&B; powerhouses as Aretha Franklin and Solomon Burke.

But Phillips only had two Top 20 pop singles and 12 R&B; hits during a career that stretched from 1950 into the 1980s, making her one of the most overlooked figures in modern pop. This set doesn’t cover Phillips’ entire career, only the years cited in the title.

Born Esther Mae Jones in Galveston, Texas, in 1935, she started singing in church, according to David Nathan’s lengthy liner notes. She was only 13 when she was discovered by R&B; bandleader Johnny Otis after she won a talent contest in Los Angeles with her treatment of a Dinah Washington hit.

A year later, Otis teamed the teenager with Bobby Nunn, a member of the Robins vocal group, on a song, “Double Crossing Blues,” that went to No. 1 on the R&B; charts. Billed as Little Esther, she teamed with various male singers for seven other R&B; hits over the next two years before her career went into a dry spell and she returned to Texas.

Her comeback began when Kenny Rogers, the country star, heard her sing Rich’s “Headstone” in a Houston club and recommended her to his brother, Leland, who recorded her for his Lennox label.

By this time, she was tired of the Little Esther tag and adopted the name Phillips off a billboard advertising Phillips 66 gasoline. Her 1962 version of “Release Me” was both a pop and R&B; hit.

When Lennox later went bankrupt, Atlantic Records picked up her contract. Despite limited commercial success at Atlantic, Phillips showed a remarkable vocal flexibility and character, recording songs identified with such varied writers as Bob Dylan (“Tonight, I’ll Be Staying Here With You”), Willie Nelson (“Hello Walls”), Cole Porter (“Out of the Blue”), Van Morrison (“Crazy Love”) and the Rolling Stones (“As Tears Go By”).

The only disappointment is that the box set doesn’t give us a broader view of the career of Phillips, who died in 1984 of kidney and liver failure, aggravated apparently by drug and alcohol abuse. Yet the collection does give us the heart of a wonderful stylist’s R&B; legacy.

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good), four stars (excellent).