As a response to my sermon on Sunday, Stephanie Newton and Stephen Miller did an amazing performance of a song called “Your Kindness,” which was originally written and recorded about 25 years ago by a contemporary Christian artist named Leslie Phillips. I couldn’t find a YouTube link, but you can download the song from iTunes here.
More importantly, in the late-’80s Phillips reverted to her childhood nickname, Sam, changed labels, and began a far more artistically rewarding music career outside of the confines of CCM. She frequently collaborated with her then-husband T-Bone Burnett (in-demand producer of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, among many others). I’ve had the pleasure of seeing her in concert a few times. I even met her after a ’95 show at the Variety Playhouse in Little Five Points.
If, like me, you watched The Gilmore Girls, you know Phillips’s music: Hers is the voice and guitar you hear in the spaces between scenes in every episode. In other words, she sings and plays the “la-la-la” parts, although occasionally the show used full songs of hers, including the one below. (If memory serves, “Reflecting Light” was the song playing during the wedding reception of Luke’s sister, Liz, and her husband TJ.)
She performed in person in Stars Hollow during the music-heavy last episode of Season 6.
I used to love Gilmore Girls, especially in its earlier seasons. It was really a brilliant show. I can’t wait to hear the music. Thanks for sharing it.
We’ve recently been re-visiting the DVDs from Season 5, I think. It holds up well. My favorite part of the show, as strange as it is to say, is the intense arguments between Lorelei and her parents. Whereas much of the show’s banter is elegantly stylized, when they start arguing, it becomes stark and realistic. You know what I mean? And I appreciate that they aren’t afraid to make the “hero,” Lorelei come off looking bad sometimes. Not as bad as her parents, of course, but still… Good writing!