Singer, songwriter and producer Anne Phillips, set to celebrate birthday #90 on February 17, has had a storied career, working with the likes of Burt Bacharach, Carole King, Mahalia Jackson, the Four Tops, the Turtles, Martha and the Vandellas and many, many more. She grew up in 
Pennsylvania, played the piano, developed as a vocalist and went to Oberlin College where she sang with the school’s big band and had a radio show. With a post-college move to NYC, Phillips started working in demo recordings, became a member of the Ray Charles Singers and recorded her first pop album, Born to Be Blue, for Roulette. Working as a singer, music arranger, conductor, writer and producer for national commercials followed. Phillips is the founder of the non-profit Kindred Spirits, which produces her annual Bending Towards the Light – A Jazz Nativity as well as runs an educational program for inner-city children, The Kindred Spirits Children’s Jazz Choirs, which teaches jazz music.[13]
Phillips Celebrates her 90th Birthday on Monday, February 17 at 7:00 PM at Pangea (178 Second Avenue at 12th Street, New York, NY)
NiteLife Exchange (NLE) asks Anne Phillips (AP) Six Questions:
NLE: Your upcoming show at Pangea is a celebration of music from over the decades of your long life. As you watched the music evolve, how did your own performance style change? What stands out the most about your own musical evolution?
AP: My evolution is what my show at Pangea is all about. Playing and singing in clubs (dives and high class) from 9 to 3 or 10 to 4), demos for songwriters, TV shows, record dates, commercials, my own shows. My first album Born to Be Blue has become a sort of classic and i don’t think my “style” has changed much, just older and wiser, as one reviewer said. What stands out is that there once were places for singers to sing and grow.
NLE: During your college years you worked at a radio station. What did that experience teach you about yourself and especially about starting out on your life’s path?
AP: I was 17 when I went to Oberlin and had a weekly show on WOBC, singing and playing.. and I was also the opening act on the Brubeck at Oberlin concert—the first college jazz concert. I have been friends with the Brubeck family ever since. His son Chris was a King in the Jazz Nativity in 2023.
NLE: As a backup singer for Ray Charles on the Perry Como show in the 1950s you no doubt 
witnessed the effects of the color line that cut across all of society at that time. Was there a special camaraderie in the music community then, especially in jazz where social justice found a start?
AP: Wrong Ray Charles! Not the Raelettes, the Ray Charles SINGERS. Ray had singers on many TV shows and finally had his on-screen credit as THE OTHER RAY CHARLES.
The most important experience with the color line was when I wrote a choral album Noel Noel and asked Malcolm Dodds to conduct. I had met Malcolm on demos; he sang the Johnny Mathis demos and was also a conductor. I had hired the singers I knew but Malcom said: “I know some singers who would be great for this.” … and that’s when I met so many Black singers who were not doing the record dates downtown. No rehearsal—three sessions and reviews like this: “Her handling is thoroughly unorthodox in present disc terms but of the highest artistic order.” I have re-released it and you can find it on Amazon. The camaraderie on record dates no matter what color was wonderful It was just about getting a great take!
NLE: In 1986 you created Bending Towards The Light A Jazz Nativity, still going strong as an annual holiday event. What sparked the idea?
AP: The beginning of the Jazz Nativity was a call from the Rev. John Garcia Gensel from St. Peter’s Lutheran Church. He was known in the jazz community. He said he had suggested me as the writer of The jazz Maternity. That was the summer of 1986. It became Bending Towards the Light … A Jazz Nativity.
NLE: What were the challenges of getting the piece produced—and are there still challenges in keeping the show vital each year.
AP: The challenge is raising the money every year. And getting it out to the world. It has been performed and loved in many cities with their own jazz performers. PBS excitedly said yes, but at our expense. What Charles Kuralt wrote when we asked him to be our host means more every year”
THE LIGHT IS MEANT TO SERVE–AS LIGHT SERVES FOR SO MANY RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES–AS A SYMBOL OF TRUTH AND LOVE. AND HOPE. HOPE THAT EVEN IN A DARK SEASON, WE MAY BEGIN TO SEE THE WORLD . . . BENDING TOWARDS THE LIGHT.
NLE: You’ve collaborated with major songwriters such as Burt Bacharach and Carole King. What have been the benefits—and drawbacks—of working with such well-known creators?
AP: I worked with them on both demos and records and certainly their writing influenced me. NO drawbacks.
NLE: A focus of your career has been your amazing and fruitful work, with and for children, in The Kindred Spirits, with your partner and husband, Bob Kindred . What has this effort taught you? What advice would you like to share with the current generation now?
AP: My Children’s Jazz Choirs came out of the Jazz Nativity children’s project, which gave inner-city children the opportunity to see the show. That led to the choirs where i taught kids great standards. In a reading program it was a great access to their reading! AND they heard MELODIES!
