Welcome to 2025 and here is a project I have been looking forward to sharing. Anthony Phillips was the original guitar player in Genesis, playing on their first two albums. ‘From Genesis To Revelation’ and ‘Tresspass’ with his tenure lasting from 1967 to 1970. It was he who was most instrumental in the band becoming professional and a live band. They had not supported their first album with live shows as Phillips, as well as vocalist Peter Gabriel were still at school at the time. The irony of this was that Phillips would develop stage fright. He thought the stage fright would pass but that and a case of bronchial pneumonia brought about his departure from the band. Phillips kept in touch with the his old band mates, and would continue to write with Mike Rutherford. He would also collaborate with Harry Williamson (son of Tarka the Otter author, Henry Williamson) as well as training as a music teacher, studyed orchestration and continuing to write music.
Throughout the seven year period between leaving Genesis and releasing his first solo album, Philips would continue to record demos and was looking to work on a project with old band mate Mike Rutherford. The pair would meet up sporadically due to Rutherford’s commitments to Genesis. The first fruits of this collaboration to partially see the light of day was ‘Silver Song’, a song that the pair had written in 1969 as a farewell to departing Genesis drummer, John Silver. Phillips and Rutherford brought in Phil Collins who was then in the Genesis drummer’s stool to not only provide percussion, but lead vocals. A B-Side was quickly written in the form of ‘Only Your Love’ but with everything ready to go, the Charisma label who had financed the recordings decided against releasing the record. To this day, no one is sure why.
However, what if this single was scheduled for a release in 1975 when Genesis were taking a break after the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway tour and the departure of vocalist Peter Gabriel? This could be the prelude to an Anthony Phillips solo album to be released the same year, two years before his official 1977 debut, ‘The Geese & The Ghost’. But what should be on it?
Well, since 2014 Cherry Red Records and the people who have been curating Phillips’ tape archive have been doing a sterling job re-releasing his back catalogue. Each set comes with one disc of unreleased material which is of such a high quality, I am surprised these have not seen the light of day before. I was also surprised by the amount of material that has come out that was written and recorded before 1977 that was not included on his first album.
With this album following on from the proposed 1975 release of the ‘Silver Song’, this was going to be a a more stripped down affair due to the fact that Mike Rutherford would not have been able to spend much, if any time with Phillips due to his commitments to Genesis and the ‘Lamb Lies Down on Broadway’ Tour. I also looked to follow the template of ‘Geese & the Ghost, so we get some vocal and instrumental tracks. Very few of these songs have been re-recorded since they were laid down in demo form. One that did see the light of day before was a re-recording of ‘Stranger’ which appears on the first ‘Private Parts & Pieces’. Another was ‘Take This Heart’ which would be recorded in 1975 by the Charterhouse Choral Society for the Charisma release, ‘Beyond An Empty Dream’. That version is very different from the original demo. As the majority of these are demo recordings, some of the fidelity is not studio quality. However, these are the only recordings I had to work with.
Side A
- Queen Bettine (1972 Demo)
- Picardy Pictures (1972 Demo)
- Rowey Song (1972 Version)
- Child Song (1973 Demo)
- Stranger (1970 Demo)
Side B
- Guitar Song (1973 Demo)
- Variation On A Theme Of Fantoms (1973 Demo)
- Windmill (1971 Demo)
- Take This Heart (1972 Demo)
- Rowey Reprise (1972 Version)
- Master Of Time (1973 Demo)
- Will The Last Man Off The Ice Rink (Please Turn Out The Lights) (Recorded 1973)
Single
- Silver Song (Recorded 1973)
- Only Your Love (Recorded 1973)
None of the songs really lent themselves to a title except for ‘Variation on a Theme of Fantoms’ so I decided that should be what the album you’d have been called. Phillips has used the artist Peter Cross for many of his sleeves, but I did not have a piece of his artwork I could use. I therefore used a picture I took on a very cold December morning near the village of Moggerhanger,