The “Golden Hits Of The 50s”
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PHIL PHILIPS AND THE TWILIGHTS
“SEA OF LOVE“
(George Khoury, Phil “PHIL PHILLIPS” Baptiste)
Mercury 71465
No. 2 August 24, 1959
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Nineteen fifty-eight was a long year for John Baptiste, a frustrated guitar-playing bellhop. By day, he
would move the luggage at the Chateau Charles in Lake Charles, Louisiana; by night, he would try to
move a young girl named Verdie Mae.
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“She’d not always be a lover and I had my guitar, so I went and wrote this song, ‘Sea Of Love,’ reported
Baptiste in an exclusive interview. “You see, she really didn’t believe in me. But I felt if I could sing
about it, a sea of love, you know, where it’s quiet and peaceful, I could really show her how much I
loved her and cared for her.”
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One day the gas-meter reader, making his usual house call, overheard John practicing his ode of
oceanic love. “He’s the one that impressed on me that I really had something. He said, ‘You’re
walking around with a million dollars in your hand. All you got to do is do something about it.”‘
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The meter man told John about George Khoury, a local record producer who had worked on Cookie &
The Cupcakes’ “Matilda” (#47, 1959). Khoury liked what he heard in John, and immediately brought him
to Eddie Shuler’s small Goldband Recording Studio. “We went in there, and I sung the song over and over
again. We went back the next night, and the next, and over and over again we went on that tune, until we
were sure that we got the cut on it.”
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John got some friends together and taught them how to sing the tune’s haunting and seductive
backing vocals. Shuler brought in a number of musicians, searching for the just-right sound
which he eventually extracted from the Cupcakes. For reasons related to his interest in hypnosis,
Khoury suggested that John make double use of his middle name, Phillip. By June 1959, John
was “Phil Phillips,” and “Sea Of Love” was selling so well on Khoury’s independent label that the
record was leased to Mercury for national distribution. Within weeks, this eerie swamp tune was
number two in the nation.
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One-time gospel singer and bellhop Baptiste was never again to have another hit. Four more singles
were released, but despite Clyde Otis’ lush production–and back-up vocals by Brook Benton and the
Jordanaires on several of these numbers–not one of them even came close to returning “Phil” to the
charts.
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Phillips never married Yerdie Mae, the girl for whom he wrote “Sea Of Love.” “No, no, I sure didn’t,”
he explained. “I married the right one, though, yes indeed. But ooh, it’s a good thing I didn’t marry that
Verdie.” He never got his hands on that million dollars. “I’m waitin’ by the mail box, yet. I never did get
my money. The only thing I did get off that record as an artist was $6,800.”
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Well into the ’90s, John has been a weekend DJ at KJEF in Jennings, Louisiana. He is the producer of the
late ‘ 80s Fire Ants’ rendition of his one hit. Them Fire Ants are Rabbi, Shapina, Israel, Manedalisha, and
Ethopia Baptists–five of his children.
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