Musical Chemistry
professor’s love ot music culminates in debut album
On April 22, Dr. Jim Phillips released the debut album of his latest passion project. Titled Jim Phillips Project, Phase I, this unique collection of original songs is separated into nine different tracks focused on life experiences, including life choices, faith, family, friendships, and starting anew in another place. Although he is based in town as a dedicated chemistry professor at UW-Eau Claire, Phillips has been in love with music for the past three decades. He started to learn how to play when his older brother gave him his guitar as a gift.
“I always liked music as a kid. Music was always part of my soul,” he said.
Phillips likes to perform, write, and create original music representing a diverse range of genres which include classic rock, folk rock, alternative, pop, country, and blues from the Deep South.
“This is the culmination of a lifelong goal and has been a transformative experience,” he said. “I had some original songs and more space in life after children went off to college. There wasn’t enough time to juggle between being a family guy and a music guy and a work guy, but then I got serious about dusting off the old songs and started writing the new ones, and then I got the courage to do it and asked some friends to help.”
Phillips has performed with various veteran musicians in the Chippewa Valley to create this album. Among them are John Lebrun on drums and percussion, Lucas Fischer on electric guitar, Julie Majkowski on flute, Dan Zerr on bass and vocals, and others who helped Jim create Phase I at Pine Hollow Studio in Eau Claire.
Each song is a mellow yet upbeat moment spanning from Southern-oriented jam rock to indie ballads. The tracks, taken in sequence, sound like taking loved ones and friends on a long road trip across the Midwest.
Jim’s favorite track must be “Far Away,” because he remembered when the melody came to him after moving to the UWEC campus. Fischer’s guitar solo captured the piece’s emotionality, he said. “The song is really about ambiguity,” Jim explained, saying that blues music is all about taking negative circumstances in your life and turning them into something positive.
The Jim Phillips Project will perform on Saturday, June 23, at the Bullfrog Fish Farm in Menomonie. And at 5pm Wednesday, June 26, he will perform as part of the Rock’n on the River series at River Prairie in Altoona.
