Philip Overton: When the song's about the dance

             Philip Overton does not sound his age. From his manner of speaking to the voice that’d be better suited to a blues veteran far before his time, the easy-speakin’ gentleman is out of place for this era. To begin with, old country and delta blues fans should easily swoon over his old-school serenade-- he can effectively cover Son House with ease (not a careless feat for most) and channel Tom Waits, all the while keeping his guitar consistent, in time and just plain swell. Everything is spot on, simple but deceptively masterful. 

Photo courtesy of Philip Overton

            Overton was introduced to the old sound by “a very bad old friend from school” at a bar—“we were too young to be in the place”—and has been listening to all sorts of old rhythm and blues ever since. "The recordings are old, but the tunes are timeless. That still is how I got hooked,” he says. “The live experience. The best thing about a live show is you can dance. I don’t mean jumping around the place like I’m looking to hurt somebody; I mean with a girl. You can call me anything you want but I still like to dance in a pair… Sometimes the song is about the dance.”

            Overton first picked up the guitar at the age of 15, and started singing as a result of an of an old band he founded all trying their hand at vocals before he landed the mic.

“It turned out I was the one who really wanted to do it after all.”

            The man doesn’t consider himself “very special” for what he plays, but says “I’ll be playing and singing so long as I’ve got sparks in my brain. It’s the creativity that I really dig; I can pick up the guitar and just make something up. That’s instant art. As soon as the thought appears, I send it through my nerves and out of the guitar. Instant expression—I don’t even need to wait for the paint to dry.”

            While discussing influences, Overton divulges his “trinity”—Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and Jack White. Waits is Overton’s dream collaborator— “It’d be wild. I'd stroll over to the piano like I know what I'm doing and he'd just go to town with an old tire-iron and a dustbin lid,” he says. “He could growl and I'd whistle; he'd stomp and I'd holler; he'd clang, boom, scream and I'd shake, rattle and pop. Even on conventional instruments, there are a few tricks I'd be keen to steal off him.”

            He also adds Patti Smith, Nick Cave “for Murder Ballads alone,” Pokey LaFarge, Boxcar Joe Strouzer and The Midnight Barbers.

            Non-musical artistic inspirations include David Hockney, Lucian Freud, Ai Weiwei (who’s “doing something bold,” though Overton fears it’ll be over before he understands what it is).

As he puts it, when Overton performs, he tries to tell the story of the evening: one song should follow the other, from the themes to the lyrics to the melody. He likes to keep it simple, and keep the audience on the same page—preferably sentence, word, breath.

As Overton tells it, the greatest trick of the artist is to become immortal and then die. This artist in particular could have quite the story.

His tunes are just a click away at sharpnoir.tumblr.com.