Was there any more of a sonic blues racket than when Hound Dog Taylor And The HouseRockers began a set of their incendiary brand of blues?  There was Taylor, usually seated in one of the ghetto joints they played, using his metal slide and slashing out a boogie of torrential proportions, or perhaps a driving shuffle, and yet again a highly emotional, but nonetheless heavy, slow burn blues designed to bring his audience to the precipice of an affecting demonstrative frenzy.  All the while, Ted Harvey, certifiably one of the all-time great blues shuffle drummers ever, providing the absolute best spirit of energy to whatever blues visions Taylor sought, and without a doubt, one of the most cheerful and friendly men who ever graced Chicago’s blues stages.  And then, there was Brewer Phillips.  Taylor’s aggregation, sweaty, high-energy, and always a raucous good time, could not have succeeded if not for the bass patterns set by Phillips with his thumb picking style, all the while also offering weighty strummed boogie runs in counterpoint to Taylor’s ripping slide incursions.  However, this is not to suggest that Phillips was only capable of providing foundational rhythmic guitar backing; when he was called upon to yield to a solo, the outcome was an extremely well-constructed single-string sequence that burned.  The end result was blues at its most untamed and noisily over-the-top, and again, without Phillips, it could not have happened.

Brewer Phillips was born in mid-November, 1924 in Coila, Mississippi, a city in Carroll County which is located in the mid northern third of the state.  I probably state the following more than I care to, but exact details of Phillips’ youngest years are not readily available.  What is known is that in his early days he had as a friend a person who would go on to great acclaim in Chicago as both a solo blues artist and someone who was highly contributory to bluesman Jimmy Reed’s enormous success; Eddie Taylor.  Being that the youths were native Mississippians, the blues was everywhere, and one thing was evident to both of the fledgling aspiring blues guitarists was that the brand of blues they found appealing had, at its core, a substantial boogie foundation.

In the middle part of the 1950s, Phillips moved somewhat northward to Memphis, Tennessee, and because of his guitar knowhow, was invited to provide his skills on sessions for the prominent blues artists Roosevelt Sykes and Memphis Minnie.  It was also during this period when Phillips joined the band of Bill Harvey.  Harvey was a saxophonist and bandleader whose band was featured on many sides coming of out of Don Robey’s Peacock and Duke labels, including those by Bobby “Blue” Bland, Marie Adams, Big Mama Thornton, and Little Junior Parker.  Harvey’s great band also was the touring aggregation of Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown.  He was also B.B. King’s bandleader for four years.  As such, it was of great advantage to Phillips to have served an apprenticeship of sorts in Harvey’s band in Memphis.

Rolling into the 1960s, Phillips was continuing the existence as a journeyman blues musician, until when later in the decade he again moved northward, this time to Chicago, and eventually united with Taylor.  I am confident that any learned blues fan knows the nexus of Taylor coming to record for Alligator Records and label owner Bruce Iglauer, but it bears repeating. 

In 1970, Iglauer was working for Delmark Records’ Bob Koester as a shipping clerk when on a Sunday, at Chicago’s south side blues haunt Florence’s Lounge, he witnessed Taylor and his riotous band.  Iglauer campaigned Koester to record Taylor’s group, convinced that the brand of fiery blues Taylor’s troupe was laying down ideally fit Delmark Records.  But Koester would have none of it, and so armed with a meager inheritance of under $3,000, Iglauer undertook the process of starting Alligator Records for the sole intended purpose of recording Taylor and his rowdy blues crew.  In the end, it resulted in a magnificent, albeit brief, catalog of superb studio and “live” collections, all capturing to astonishing effect the full sway of Taylor, Harvey, and Phillips.  Due to the Alligator Records efforts, Taylor and the band were able to escape the revolving door of ghetto clubs and gigs, making their way to tour nationally and in Australia either alone or backing the likes of Muddy Waters and Freddie King.  They also became to darlings of college town gigs whose frenzied student club goers absolutely ate up their wild shows.

The first Alligator Records album, in particular, 1971’s Hound Dog Taylor And The HouseRockers, particularly highlighted Phillips’ guitar excursions, with him putting on conspicuous display his gashing, penetrating, almost metallic-tone to its best affect.  It was akin to a controlled fury.

By 1975, Alligator Records had released Hound Dog Taylor And The HouseRockers’ 1973 outing Natural Boogie, a collection that provided yet more touring opportunities, and 1975’s thrilling “live” collection entitled Beware Of The Dog!, a series of astounding sides actually recorded in 1974.  However, due to the ravages of cancer, Taylor died in December, 1975.

Phillips and Taylor had a long and somewhat combative relationship, and it came to pass before he died that Taylor shot Phillips over a comment Phillips made about Taylor’s woman.  For understandable reasons, this act drove a wedge between the two men, one that seemed irredeemable.  However, on his deathbed, the two men met and forgiveness was achieved.  It was as if Taylor could not move on without making peace with Phillips.

After Taylor’s passing, Phillips and Harvey carried on with Chicago slide guitar master J.B. Hutto taking over the lead position vacated by Taylor.  Additionally, Phillips and Harvey backed other bluesmen including Hutto’s nephew Lil’ Ed Williams, a burgeoning blues artist, and Cub Koda, the American rock-n-roll singer and guitarist, best known for his work with Brownsville Station, turned rabid blues performer and champion.  Working with others, Phillips continued to deploy his abundant electric blues guitar skill set as well as his proficiencies on acoustic guitar.

As Phillips moved forward into the 1980s, in 1982 his Ingleside Blues outing was released on Wolf Records, an outing that included Harvey, Hutto and Steve Plair on guitar, and Right Hand Frank on bass.  During this period, Phillips was still seen on the Chicago blues landscape, but much less frequently. 

It was not until 1996 that another Phillips release saw the light of day, this time on the Delmark Records imprint, a collection entitled Homebrew.  While somewhat rough in nature, it documented that Phillips still had it in him to wail the blues in his coarse, worn voice, provide a good turn on the guitar, and over the course of the 16 selections, with outstanding backing from Robert “Huckleberry Hound” Wright on drums, pianist Aaron Moore also lending vocal support in addition to keyboard competencies, and foundational bass from Willie Black., it was a welcome release from a hallowed Chicago blues legend.  The title track, in particular, showcases Phillips’ guitar dynamisms in full glory.

While the 1996 Delmark Records outing showed that Phillips still had some left in the tank, it proved to be his parting blues gift to the world, and he passed away in Chicago in August, 1999.

One element I have waited until the end of this writing to speak to was Phillips’ habit of lifting his left leg when the music was especially moving him, when he was truly in-the-moment, at that time when the music completely overtook him and he was transported to a musical euphoria.  When that time came and Phillips cocked that leg, his passion for the blues was about to spill forth.  It was blues art of the highest order.

There are various other collections out there that feature Phillips’ blues vitalities including Wolf Records’ 1992 The Houserockers and 1995’s Good House-Rockin’, the Black Rose label’s Well Alright from 1999, and JSP Records’ 2021 release Tearing The Roof Off. 

Brewer Phillips yet again was one of those journeyman Chicago blues artists whose contributions to the music was substantial and deserves to be celebrated.  Listen closer to your Hound Dog Taylor And The HouseRockers albums and you’ll realize Phillips’s bountiful musical gifts.  They’re there on full, outstanding display.