Just a quick update in case anyone is interested. I recently received a call from Stoney Phillips who actually ran across this blog and called. He definitely was the real Stoney Phillips. I recognized the voice after all those years. Still very laid-back about everything. I enjoyed our brief conversation. I am now down to John Mahoney and Dave Wright who I haven't re-visited with since I realized the internet related recognition of the album.
In our brief conversation Stoney filled me in on what he had been up to since we disbanded in 1972. After the group broke-up Stoney continued on as a local musician in the Chicago area playing with several local groups. In the mid-80's he ventured out west when live-performance opportunities in Chicago became more difficult to find.
At one point he looked-up Bruce Swedien in Los Angeles and made several unsuccessful attempts to see him. His interest was to get a little help in finding work out there. It seemed a little strange that Bruce found excuses every day for several days to avoid even saying hello.
Later, Stoney ran into John Mahoney back in Chicago. John proceeded to go into great detail about how Thriller was heavily influenced, to say the least, by Anomaly. In particular, the Monster Bride cut. So, the fact that Bruce was avoiding Stoney would have made sense because Thriller had come out not too much before Stoney's visit. John seemed to think the similarities between the albums were probably at least a point of embarassment for the great producer, if not a legal issue in his mind.
Let's listen to the un-cut version of Thriller and compare with Monster Bride or Witches. Let me know what you think.
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