For Christians who found faith during the Jesus Movement, musician Sam Phillips sums up how things changed and the debate about whether things changed for the better. She began her career in Contemporary Christian Music as Leslie Phillips, becoming one of the genre’s bestselling female artists. By 1988, she had rebranded as Sam Phillips and left Christian music, becoming an acclaimed independent musician. You’ve probably heard her music in shows like Gilmore Girls.
Like many Christian musicians she collaborated with—musicians like Mark Heard and Michael Been— Phillips found it difficult to fit into the changing Christian music industry. As the 1970s progressed to the 1980s, audiences became less patient with music asking questions or critiquing hypocrisy. Today, as movies like Jesus Revolution are leading people to re-explore Christian rock’s early days, Phillips’ thoughts on the genre give an interesting look at what changed.
Many of her thoughts on Christian subculture also make for good reading since many things she critiqued have become well-known issues that churches are trying to reform.
How Did Sam Phillips Go from Christian Music to Independent Music?
Leslie Ann “Sam” Phillips was born June 28, 1962, in Glendale, California. She later described her family life as unstable and began writing songs at 14 to deal with the trauma. Around age 10, she became interested in studying Christianity and began reading voraciously.
As she was studying, she was also exploring churches in California. She became involved in the Vineyard church—the same period that Bob Dylan and various other artists were associated with it. Speaking with Jeffrey Overstreet about the period, she observed, “At that time a lot of people were turning to Christianity, a lot of people who since have left the church. It was an odd time, and it’s hard to explain this to people who know fundamentalism now, who see the very political church, the very showy church, and the televangelists. This was more of a groundswell.”
At age 18, after playing some of her songs to a friend working in Christian music, Phillips found herself on track to become a Contemporary Christian Music star. At 19, she got a contract with Myrhh Records, which advertised her as “the Christian Cyndi Lauper.” She released three Christian pop albums in three years: Beyond Saturday Night, Dancing with Danger, and Black and White in a Grey World. She appeared as an opening act for Petra and performed backing vocals on albums by Randy Stonehill, The Imperials, and Mark Heard. In 1985, Harper’s printed a press release declaring, “If ever there was a Queen of Christian rock, she’s it.”
Like Heard (who was discovered by Stonehill and Larry Norman), Phillips seemed destined for great success but struggled with expectations. Both became known for asking deep spiritual questions and disliking Christian hypocrisy or any Christian branding that made faith sound cute or easy.
Phillips’ intellectual exploration of Christianity continued—she quoted Thomas Merton and G.K. Chesterton when interviewed by CCM Magazine in 1987. However, she found audiences pushing back whenever she added nuance to her music—“People were fearful, wanting to be told what they already believed over and over again.”
At the same time, she found the Cyndi Lauper-but-sinless public image created standards even her record company couldn’t explain. She recalled record company employees telling her, “This song just sounds a little too sexy. We don’t know why, but you’ve got to change it. And no, we don’t know how you’re supposed to change it.”
Tom Willett, Phillips’ representative at Myrrh, recalled that she was unhappy after releasing her third album and yearning to grow: “[when] we talked about the next record, I sensed all this intellectual, spiritual, and musical growth.”
Willett said by this point, he and Phillips were listening to music by T Bone Burnett and Bruce Cockburn—Christian musicians who were not working in Contemporary Christian Music. Burnett had toured with Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue and attended the Vineyard during the same period as Phillips.
Willett introduced Phillips to Burnett in 1987. In a 1993 interview with Sharon Gallagher, Burnett said, “She was going through a lot of issues that I had resolved for myself probably 10 years before, issues that I considered pretty simple issues, but when you’re in the middle of them, they seem incredibly complex.”
Phillips recalled, “When I went to meet with T Bone the first time, I expected to meet a really cynical character who was really proud, looking down on me and what I did. What I found was one of the kindest, deepest Christians that I’d ever met—which really took me off guard.”
Burnett became part of Phillips’ music, encouraging her to expand her style, producing her fourth album, The Turning. Critics consider this her best Christian album. In 2001, it appeared in CCM Presents: The 100 Greatest Albums in Christian Music.
Audiences were less excited by Phillips’ new sound. In a 1991 interview with Brian Newcomb, Phillips recalled people walking out of a concert because her hair color and music style had changed, claiming she had spiritual problems.
Phillips changed directions. She got released from her contract with Myrrh and started using her nickname Sam as her recording name. She married Burnett in 1989, and they had a daughter in 1997. In 2006, Paste Magazine included them both on its list of 100 Greatest Living Songwriters.
Phillips’ first mainstream album, The Indescribable Wow! appeared in 1988. She has continued to release thoughtful albums which sometimes sound daring but are always thoughtful. For example, her 1994 album Martinis and Bikinis sounds provocative, but its music explores the problems with a “martinis and bikinis” lifestyle filled with greed and hypocrisy. HM Magazine included the album in its Top 100 Christian Rock Albums of All Time.
While Phillips has been reluctant to talk too much about her Christian pop period, many have embraced her as an inspiring example of writing spiritual music without making everything formulaic. She continues to attract new listeners, both secular people interested in good music and Christians seeking inventive songs that explore faith’s complexities.
10 Interesting Quotes by Sam Phillips
1 “It’s liberating to let God have the answers. You don’t think so at first, but it is more freeing because you’re being who you are, a human being, and letting God be God.” — 1987 CCM profile by Thom Granger
2 “My [early] songs were mostly about God… Trying to figure out how to have a relationship with God. A lot of times they were about the things I was going through, trying to figure out the pain. I felt like I could deal with a lot of things more safely in a song.” — 1996 Dallas Observer interview with Robert Wilonsky
3 “Lewis will always have a place in my heart because of the tenderness and humility of those Narnia stories. They make it so real to children, and it takes great humility to get down to that level, especially for someone as wordy and intellectual as those Oxford guys were. I will always love Lewis for doing that.” — 2009 Image Journal interview with Jeffrey Overstreet
4 “I was put in a position where I was supposed to live my life as an example for other people. There was so much pressure to be—not exactly perfect, but a very weird version of perfect. So, when freedom came, when the mystics came blowing through my world, it was such a relief. I hung onto those writers, especially Thomas Merton.” — Image Journal interview
5 “Since I left gospel music I’ve gotten some of the most beautiful letters from people who are a lot like me, people that had been alienated by the church, people who had had trouble with the church. I’ve actually felt that I’ve made some real friends.” — 1991 Harvest Rock Syndicate interview with Brian Q. Newcomb
6 “… I wanted to learn how to write songs and make music better than I had before, and I realized that a lot of the fundamentalist people didn’t care about that, or were judgmental about that. It seemed that they had a very utilitarian view of art. That art was only to serve one purpose, which was to get across their point of view, and I didn’t agree.”—2011 PopMatters interview with Enio Chiola
7 “To me, the only way you can even begin thinking about being a spiritual person is to confront the ugliness in yourself. That’s when you realize your need to turn to God.” — 1990 The Other Side interview with Dan Ouellete
8 “The thing that I shared with T Bone was that sense of always moving forward—that just because they threw you a peanut when you did a trick, you didn’t have to keep doing that trick over and over again. You could actually walk out of the cage and do something different.” — 2016 Bandcamp interview with Michael White
9 “Fundamentalism is easy, somebody tells you what to do, you can turn your brain off and the whole agenda gets passed down.” — Harvest Rock Syndicate interview
10 “At times I may have sounded angry or snobbish or bitter, and there have been things that have made me very angry, but essentially I just wish people would be real and not be afraid to be human. I think that’s all I ever needed to say in my illustrious career as a Christian artist.” — CCM profile
Lessons We Can Learn from Sam Phillips
1. Saying “it’s for Jesus” doesn’t excuse mediocre work. While some critics appreciate her final Christian album, Phillips has maintained her work in that period wasn’t good enough. In her Dan Ouellette interview, she said her Christian music career “wasn’t successful in any way that really matters. The records I made weren’t done in a quality manner.” Many Christian writers discussing creativity, like Francis Schaeffer to Steve Turner, affirm that part of using a creative gift well for God is honing one’s craft.
2. Asking questions is not a bad thing. Phillips has written many songs that deal with anger at God or wondering why God’s plans are hard to see. While these songs may not sound inspiring, they fit into the Psalms’ tradition of trusting God enough to express frustration at how hard his plans can be to understand, knowing God is big enough to handle our pain.
3. Christian influencers can be hypocrites too. During the period Phillips worked in Christian music, most evangelicals didn’t discuss church leaders doing sinful behavior. Phillips has told some sad stories about hypocrisy she experienced in Christian circles—like gospel convention attendees renting pornography. Today, it’s become more common to admit that Christian leaders aren’t immune to sin or inconsistent behavior—which has allowed many churches to have healthy conversations about accountability.
4. Christians need to be wise about how they deal with sexuality. Burnett and Phillips have both talked about her experiencing Christian leaders who talked about sexuality in manipulative ways. Phillips recalls a Christian musician who said, “This woman’s clothing gives me impure thoughts,” even when women dressed modestly, who was later arrested for being a sex offender. Today, in the backlash against Joshua Harris’ book I Kissed Dating Goodbye and various Christian leaders being fired for misconduct, many evangelicals have realized their methods for discussing lust have been manipulative or short-sighted.
5. Discerning good art requires facing one’s biases. Phillips highlighted that many of her Christian music fans “confused spiritual issues with show business and musical taste,” a problem that still occurs today. Too often, we build our idea of what “music for God” should be based on our preferences rather than considering craft, history, and what the Bible actually says.
6. Churches’ attempts to help people can become controlling if they’re not careful. Phillips observed that as she was studying Christianity, the church she attended worried she didn’t fit their standards—“They were trying to rein me in, having me do secretarial work at the church to help put me under their control.” Christian communities must always watch out for standards that have more to do with control and fear than helping people thrive.
7. Support may come from the least expected places. Phillips said a key reason The Turning got made at all was Willett saying, “Do whatever record you want to do, and I’ll cover you.”
8. Christians can affirm all truth is God’s truth. Phillips has spoken about how reading Merton helped her appreciate Zen Buddhism ideas without believing all religions are equal. In this respect, she affirms that all truth is God’s truth, which means there can be some true ideas in other religions though only Christianity brings salvation.
9. Seekers seek community. While Phillips didn’t find many allies in Christian music, she has collaborated with various Christians—notably Heard, Burnett, and Bruce Cockburn—who also fit outside the Christian music market. She has also occasionally worked with other Christian artists who have resisted easy labeling, such as German filmmaker Wim Wenders.
10. Have grace for others and yourself. Phillips’ marriage to Burnett ended in 2004, and they both remarried. Reflecting in 2013 on their relationship, Phillips said, “my ex-husband is really a part of my family because of my daughter. So it’s very important to me how he is, that he is OK, that his wife is OK, that everything is OK. But I often find myself saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, overstepping my bounds or not extending my hand enough. It’s hard to find that balance… What does love require? And how do you love? It’s not the easiest question.”
10 Best Albums by Sam Phillips
1. The Turning (1987)
2. The Indescribable Wow! (1988)
3. Cruel Inventions (1991)
4. Martinis and Bikinis (1994)
5. Fan Dance (2001)
6. A Boot and a Shoe (2004)
7. Don’t Do Anything (2008)
8. Push Any Button (2013)
9. World on Sticks (2018)
10. Cold Dark Nights (2019)
Further Reading:
What Can Sheila Walsh Teach Us about Faith Amid Struggles?
What Is the Spiritual Importance of Music for Christians?
5 Christian Rock Musicians You Didn’t Know About
Remembering Contemporary Christian Music Pioneer Keith Green
How Did John Michael Talbot Change Christian Music?
20 Great Books on Christian Music
What Makes Christian Musician Michael Card Unique?
What Does the Bible Say About Worship? Do Music Styles Matter?
Photo Credit: Ian Muttoo/Wikimedia Commons
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