A classic song is never just about the music. It’s about the best night of your life. It’s about the best DJ you ever heard. It’s about the song that saved you, the first time you met, the last time you saw someone and the way they said goodbye. A classic is the sum total of the music and the feelings it evokes and calls up like a medium at a séance. Step carefully, because when you’re messing about with a classic song, you’re dealing with people’s lives.
Elbert Phillips can still remember the first time heard Frankie Knuckles, Satoshi Tomiie and Robert Owens on “Tears.” It was at a loft in the South Loop in 1989, when the song was fresh in a way that not so many things in Chicago’s house music scene were fresh anymore.
Later, Phillips would become friends and was handpicked to open Frankie’s Chicago parties, but at the time he remembers Frankie as “like a mythical figure. I wasn’t close to him then. I didn’t know him. I didn’t know many people who knew him in 1989. He had been gone [back to New York] for two years by then.”
Thirty four years later, Elbert Phillips and London vocalist Andre Espeut have teamed up with a dynamite group of musicians for what they call a “loving tribute”: a new cover of “Tears,” out now.
You might think that taking on a cover of such a well-known track — a classic if there ever was one — requires a certain audacity. The theme that Phillips has found running through the feedback he’s received so far, though, is centered around the word “brave.”
“That’s what I keep hearing,” he says with a laugh. “‘That was brave of you all.'”
The project came about though, because of another word.
“Andre,” Phillips says. “Andre sent me a video from his phone singing ‘Tears,’ and I was like, ‘Well… damn.’ I didn’t give it a thought once I heard him nail it and perform it the way he did.
“The thing about Andre is he just has a natural ability to take a song that he didn’t write and just make it his own. I think he’s a genius. His phrasing, how he puts words together. With ‘Tears,’ he just smacked it out of the park. It was just the perfect story.”
5 Mag Issue 212
Out April 2024
BELOVED: This was originally published in 5 Mag Issue #212 featuring an oral history of Freerange, DJ Paulette, Black Sjuan, Elbert Phillips, Dark Heaven and more. Become a member for $2/month and get every issue in your inbox right away!
With Shamrock Guitor, William Kurk, Tom Laroye and others, Phillips put together a band spanning three continents who play incredibly tight on “Tears,” despite having never been in the same room together. Even while working on it, they were keenly aware they were working with material that they don’t own the rights to.
“You don’t necessarily need anyone’s permission to cover a song,” Phillips says. “But you do ideally want their approval. And I did in this case for sure. Frankie of course was one of the writers and his share was bequeathed to the estate, so I went to them. And Robert [Owens] was totally cool.”
“Tears” is not conventional house release and isn’t being released in a conventional form. Instead, two separate labels have split formats between them, with Chillifunk Records handling digital and German-based label Yore Records handling vinyl. I think I’ve heard about every novel distribution strategy used in music today, but this is was I haven’t seen before.
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“Shopping projects can be kind of stressful,” Phillips says. “I already had a relationship with Chillifunk — these guys are home, these guys are cool, so why go through the stress of trying to get people to listen to the demo? I offered it to Chillifunk instead and they were happy to take it on.
“At the same time, I knew Chillifunk wasn’t going to do a vinyl release. I met Andy [Vaz] at Yore and he was cool. These two crowds are dedicated — you’ve got vinyl people who will not consider digital files and vice-versa. Yore is pressing up 250 copies so it’s a limited release.
“This all might be unusual but I feel good about it.”
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[…] Elbert Phillips: Tears. Elbert Phillips & Andre Espeut deliver a sensational cover of the Frankie Knuckles & […]