REVIEW: PHILIP J. KEARNS' CD by: Kim Bowman Picking up Philip J. Kearns' self-titled CD the first time, I turned it over for a gander at the song list and instead found myself struck by the back photo. Here's a man grinning into a camera in his own outstretched hand. The notes inside tell me he's in his mid-fifties, and the pic does not deceive. Yet a boyishness escapes the laugh lines around his eyes and the jawbone shadow which will not be razed. Maybe it is the bashful earnestness suggested by the sideways glance into the eyes of an audience he holds above himself. The CD, like the snapshot, is a self-portrait, and the first words he sings when I play the disc capture so simply what the picture expresses: " S'that you sweetie, 'cause this is me?" Kearns invites his audience not just to hear the songs, but to receive them in the same vulnerability with which he plays: he has nothing but his guitar, his voice and his soul. The first few gentle chords of "S'that You Sweetie?" unfold and fall like a bubbling stream, pulling me into this love song and the album, and Kearns' talent with his instrument becomes immediately apparent. His voice is strong, revealing an angst which stands in contrast to the quiet sensitivity of his guitar, giving the song an emotional complexity. The song itself speaks to the agitation of a man emotionally unveiled to another who seems reticent. It begins softly and slowly, with tender words complaining of their separation: "I just called so you would talk to me/ I'm not where I want to be/ I want to be with you." But as the song progresses, it takes leave of its shy longings, the music and lyrics becoming bolder with the suggestion of playing strip poker, asking, "Would anybody care/ Who loses first, winds up baring/ All for us to see." By song's end, the lyrics demand of the reticent one, "You haven't said a word/ c'mon, answer me." What discloses Kearns' vocal talent most is the subtle change in meaning which happens to the refrain throughout the song. "S'that You, Sweetie?" morphs from a love-sick question spoken over the telephone into the soulful imperative to know the other. The songs that follow continue to manifest Kearns' ability to shift phrase, tone and meaning. "A Regular Guy," Kearns writes in the jacket notes, emerged during the turmoil of feelings which erupted during his stay at a treatment facility. The lyrics tell of a man trying to find the courage to be honest with himself and the world, wishing he could find a man like himself who wants "just to be a regular guy." The song may be the most subdued on the disc, and its quietness evokes the first tender attempts to express a whirlwind of contradictory feelings spanning from "I'm afraid of people/ Can't bear to be alone." It's followed up by "I'm Falling Again," which speaks from a more confident stance at some later time about having "held back my feelings for so many years/ I just about froze with fear." "I'm Falling Again" takes on the playful honesty which marks the collection, leaving behind the fear so apparent in "Regular Guy," resulting in an emotional growth now marked by "falling in love at the drop of a hat." Several of Kearns' songs address the issues surrounding coming out, but the capstone of the CD is a raunchy ballad about a teenaged drag queen. "High Heeled Shoes" throws all fear to the winds, like its character, Rodger, who "had no fear of anything, or of anyone." Kearns guitar in this song is sexy and whimsical easily conjuring up Rodger's "prancing with a swing like that" down the streets of 1962 in his mother's high heeled shoes. Kearns is at his best when he has a story to tell. The songs on Philip J. Kearns' first release are personal and powerful--at times, political--showing a diverse range of emotion as well as a complex use of voice and instrument. Each song demands the listener to pay attention, and in doing so, the listener is rewarded with the honest and talented expression of one man's soul. Bowman was the Features Editor for the NCCU newspaper, Campus Echo, and currently an MA candidate in English at UNCG.