Gene Phillips in Session 1945-1954/ Various - Gene Phillips In Session 1945-1954 / Various

A talented and innovative electric guitarist, Eugene Floyd Phillips landed on the West Coast with the famous Mills Brothers and remained to carve out his own career as a singer and bandleader with the Bihari brothers and their fledgling Modern Records. Parallel to his own career, Phillips was an in-demand session musician regularly on call from the mid 1940s to top L.A. record producers such as Maxwell Davis, Lloyd Glenn and Jake Porter; this set showcases the best of Phillips session work on both standard electric guitar and the more unusual lap-steel. His picking enhanced early recordings by the likes of Wynonie Harris, Amos Milburn and Johnny Otis along with more obscure names such as Duke Henderson, Henry Hayes and Louise Beatty, all featured here - not to mention Percy Mayfield's R&B chart hit, "Strange Things Happening" - with a smattering of Phillips' own rare instrumental numbers.