Isolated and painfully shy, Phyllis found a companion in music. By age 5, the precocious farm girl was playing piano by ear. She routinely ran the car battery dead listening to the Beatles. Phyllis inherited her passion for music from her mother, a country singer, with the 70’s band, The Skylarks. “She could squeeze every ounce of pathos out of her songs," Johnson recalled. Phyllis, mostly self taught, gained recognition as a uniquely gifted singer/multi-instrumentalist. Upon graduation, she won the honorable Lillian Paulson Hauge piano scholarship. By 19, a St. Paul audition landed her in Prince's camp. "I never met Prince, but was one of the gnomes in his purple kingdom!", she jested. "Our producer was twice removed from Prince so our band was pretty low on the food chain," she added. Artistically constricting, Phyllis left the r&b band along with any hopes of a Warner Brothers deal. She hooked up with the acclaimed UND Jazz Choir, receiving top national honors in Chicago and a spotlight in Down Beat Magazine. The Greeley Jazz Fest (the largest in the nation), awarded Phyllis 1 of 2 microphones for outstanding soloist. She was the only singer ever invited to tour with the reputable UND Jazz Band. A prolific songwriter, Phyllis had amassed a respectable catalog of songs and featured them in several original/cover bands including TBC, Jedd Zepplyn, The Suffering Bastards, & The Beatitudes. The charity album, “Another Christmas" (an original project), drew fans from Liverpool to Africa in spite of it's modest production. At age 25, a debilitating voice disorder forced her into retirement, ending a promising career. “You've been given a lemon…make lemonade," were the doctor’s words. Now, 15 years later, Phyllis is back. The formidable voice she was accustomed to has been replaced with a more fragile, world-weary one. Anticipate a double length CD of old school, redemptive, melodic pop/rock songs from a catalog 20 years deep, appropriately titled, "Lemonade."
~N. D. Grittith
