After spending his formative years in Stockton, CA, Grant Lee Phillips headed to Los Angeles to study film. Finding himself beneath the spell cast by local bands like the Rain Parade and the Dream Syndicate, Phillips soon partnered with Stockton acquaintance Jeff Clark to form Shiva Burlesque. The band dissolved after two critically acclaimed records, and Phillips began writing and demoing under the Grant Lee Buffalo alias. Following several solo performances, he invited former bandmates Joey Peters and Paul Kimble to join him, and the trio signed to the Warner Bros subsidiary Slash Records in 1992.

Phillips' golden, honey-soaked voice had largely gone to waste in Shiva Burlesque, but the new band enabled him to step out as a singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Grant Lee Buffalo went on to release four very different LPs, although a cult following, several successful tours, and across-the-board critical acclaim (Phillips was voted Rolling Stone's Male Vocalist of the Year following the second LP) didn't translate into strong sales. Frustrated with his label's dead-on-arrival promotion, Phillips asked for his band to be released from their contract, and he was obliged. (It was erroneously reported that GLB had been dropped.) Phillips dissolved his band, anxious to forge a new path.

In October of 1999, he headed to Jon Brion's studio and recorded a handful of new songs, played exclusively by himself. Dubbed Ladies' Love Oracle, the album was self-released the following year online; Phillips also sold it during his numerous appearances at Largo in Hollywood. After landing a new contract with Zoe/Rounder Records, he issued the excellent Mobilize in 2001. The next year, Rounder reissued Ladies' Love Oracle in time for Phillips' joint tour with Kristin Hersh and Joe Doe. Virginia Creeper followed in 2004, marking the first time that Phillips had consciously eschewed all electric guitars in favor of a stripped-down, folksy sound. A covers album, Nineteeneighties, appeared in 2006, and Strangelet arrived one year later. For his next effort, Phillips assembled a band comprising Jay Bellerose, Paul Bryan, and Jamie Edwards, all of whom spent five quick days recording 2009's Little Moon.

CD Full Length

Grant Lee Phillips, Little Moon: With golden voice and silver-dipped pen Grant-Lee Phillips presents another milestone in a career brimming with the like. Little Moon is track after track of well-anchored classic American music - Rock and Folk swirl under clouds of cinematic strings for a primer on the art of the timeless tune. His legendary well of melody is in full display on Little Moon, with even the most lilting piano ballad standing comfortably on a thick, powerful trunk ('Older Now'). Long one of Los Angeles' most sought after songwriters, Grant-Lee meets Little Moon with positive inspirations including the birth of his daughter Violet ('Violet') and a creative calm that saw the songs well up organically from earlier live collaborations with drummer Jay Bellerose, producer bassist Paul Bryan and keyboardist Jamie Edwards. Captured live in the studio with limited overdubs, the album keenly chronicles the sunny day feel of the songs and that ever-elusive in the moment groove of a finely-tuned band working out equally finely-crafted material. $16.00

Grant Lee Phillips, Strangelet: Described by the former Grant Lee Buffalo ringmaster as a record for strange times, Strangelet packs a deft emotional wallop, delving deep into the inner conflagrations of the soul (Runaway) and the outer combativeness of human nature (Chain Lightnin'), while at the same time reveling in the troubled essence of rock and roll (Johnny Guitar). All in all, it's a massive amount of beautifully strange energy crammed into the confines of a compact disc. The thought of all this strange matter floating around out there. That there's more under the stars than we can ever imagine. black holes, white dwarfs... Phillips reflects with a laugh, It's kind of nice, actually. $17.00

Grant-Lee Phillips, Nineteeneighties: Grant-Lee Phillips is one of the most gifted songwriters of his generation, having written and recorded critically lauded albums as both a solo artist during this decade and with his band Grant Lee Buffalo throughout the 1990s. On his new album, nineteeneighties, Grant-Lee pays tribute to the songwriters and artists who had a significant influence on his own work. This release includes stunning re-workings of: Wave of Mutilation (The Pixies), Age of Consent (New Order), The Eternal (Joy Division), I Often Dream of Trains (Robyn Hitchcock), The Killing Moon (Echo and the Bunnymen), Love My Way (Psychedelic Furs), Under the Milky Way (The Church), City of Refuge (Nick Cave), So. Central Rain (REM), Boys Don't Cry (The Cure) and Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me (The Smiths). $17.00

Grant-Lee Phillips, Virginia Creeper: 2004 release. Tracks: Mona Lisa, Walking Memory, Lily-A-Passion, Dirty Secret, Always Friends, Calamity Jane, Josephine Of The Swamps, Far End Of The Night, Susanna Little, Wish I Knew and Hickory Wind. $16.00

Grant Lee Phillips, Mobilize + 2: The Aussie edition of the ex-Grant Lee Buffalo frontman's critically acclaimed 2001 solo album. Includes the single, 'Spring Released' and two exclusive (hidden) bonus tracks, 'Hugo's Theme' and 'Sunday Best'. 14 tracks. $24.00

Grant Lee Phillips, Ladies' Love Oracle: Recorded over a three-day span during October 1999 in Jon Brion's basement studio, the brief, nine-song collection is a one-man show by Grant Lee Phillips, who continues to prove himself as one of the finest songwriters of the last 20 years. As stated by the man himself, Sometimes a sketch says more than a mural. Indeed, there's an even greater sense of immediacy and warmth here than in the work of his prior band. Though the chiefly acoustic guitar-based record is skeletal in nature when compared to Grant Lee Buffalo's studio work, some of these pearls are lushly draped with harmonica, piano, and other refinements without ever sounding extraneous. Here, Phillips joins the gilded ranks of Bob Mould, Mark Eitzel, and Kristin Hersh, songwriters who have flourished alone in the wakes of their respective bands. If Grant Lee Buffalo's best work is like admiring a vast flower garden from afar, Phillips' first solo release is akin to picking a rose from that garden, putting your nose to it and admiring the folds of the petals. Lovely. $20.00

Vinyl LP

Grant Lee Phillips, Little Moon: With golden voice and silver-dipped pen Grant-Lee Phillips presents another milestone in a career brimming with the like. Little Moon is track after track of well-anchored classic American music - Rock and Folk swirl under clouds of cinematic strings for a primer on the art of the timeless tune. His legendary well of melody is in full display on Little Moon, with even the most lilting piano ballad standing comfortably on a thick, powerful trunk ('Older Now'). Long one of Los Angeles' most sought after songwriters, Grant-Lee meets Little Moon with positive inspirations including the birth of his daughter Violet ('Violet') and a creative calm that saw the songs well up organically from earlier live collaborations with drummer Jay Bellerose, producer bassist Paul Bryan and keyboardist Jamie Edwards. Captured live in the studio with limited overdubs, the album keenly chronicles the sunny day feel of the songs and that ever-elusive in the moment groove of a finely-tuned band working out equally finely-crafted material. $22.00