Phil Driscoll was born in Seattle, Washington, and when he was a small child his family moved to Spokane, where his father pastored a small church and his mother played hymns on the piano and organ. Phil played a small plastic trumpet to accompany his father's preaching. When he was five the family moved to Dallas, Texas, where his parents continued their ministry. At six Phil was given a steel guitar, and won many talent contests while still a child.[citation needed]
The family subsequently moved to Lancaster, Texas, where Phil's father became chief of maintenance for the Lancaster school system. Phil began playing the trumpet, and by the sixth grade was performing in the Lancaster High School band.[14] The family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1959, where Phil's father resumed the ministry. Phil became principal trumpet and featured soloist in the Tulsa Youth Symphony.[15] In high school, he competed in the World Music Festival in Amsterdam, where his trumpet section won best in the world.[14] After high-school graduation, he was lead trumpet in the gospel touring band The Spurrlows. Driscoll then attended Baylor University in Waco, Texas under a music scholarship, where he formed the university's first jazz band.[16]
Career
Early career
While a sophomore at Baylor University, he was offered a contract by Word Records and recorded his first album, A Touch of Trumpet in 1969, accompanied by the Stockholm Symphony Orchestra.[citation needed] He also won the All American College Show musical competition on CBS, beating out even The Carpenters,[17] and was booked on a USO show touring in Asia. Driscoll also performed and ministered with Billy Graham in Europe.[14] He signed with A&R Records for his secular music, and released the album Blowin' a New Mind in 1970.
In 1972, CBS Records purchased Driscoll's song catalog and gave him a job writing music for Blood Sweat & Tears (for whom he wrote "Rock & Roll Queen" and other songs)[18] and other bands.[19] He also began touring, performing, and songwriting for nearly five years with rock musician Joe Cocker,[20] and authored three of Cocker's songs – "Southern Lady", "Wasted Years", and "Boogie Baby".[21][22][23] Driscoll also wrote for and collaborated with artists such as Steven Stills, Leon Russell, Billy Preston, and 38 Special, and performed with ensembles including the London Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1974 he moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where he stayed four and a half years and opened two nightclubs, Driscoll's Disco Nite Club and Driscoll's Nice Place.[24][25]
Inspirational and other genres
Driscoll eventually became increasingly dissatisfied with his rock and roll lifestyle, and on Christmas morning in 1977, he and his fiancée became born again Christians. He then focused his talents towards Christian ministry.[26]
1980s
In 1980, Driscoll and his family moved to Cleveland, Tennessee. Beginning with Ten Years After (1981), he began recording in the inspirational genre, producing soulful albums whose sound had an appeal to both black and white audiences.[27] He established Mighty Horn Ministries, his contemporary Christian music business, which he also shared on television. In the 1980s Driscoll also played and sang at many of Kenneth Copeland’s ministry conventions.[14]
Driscoll garnered two more Dove Award wins in the mid-1980s – for Instrumental Album of the Year for Celebrate Freedom (1985) and Instrument of Praise (1987). He released an instrumental-only album of hymns, Classic Hymns, in 1988, backed by the London National Philharmonic Orchestra.
1990s
In the 1990s, Driscoll produced more than a dozen new albums, mainly in the contemporary Christian genre. He was voted the Readers' Choice Favorite Instrumentalist in both 1990 and 1991 by Charisma magazine.[32] In 1993 he appeared on TNN's Music City Tonight.[33]
In 1996, Driscoll built a recording studio, Most High Studios, on a farm in Tennessee. He also began The Voice of Praise, a television ministry broadcast on the Inspiration Network, and released the album A Different Man, which included the hit ballad "Christ Remains".[17][34] His 1997 release, Live! With Friends, recorded live and with several other singers and musicians, included a variety of styles, moods, and genres. The album features covers of mainstream hits like "Bridge Over Troubled Water", "You Are So Beautiful", and Bob Dylan's "Gotta Serve Somebody", as well as gospel and praise songs including "His Eye Is on the Sparrow".[35]
Driscoll turned to country music with his 1998 album, Shine the Light. In 1999, he formed his own music label, Phil Driscoll Music Group, with an aim to focus on a wide variety of music styles and crossover appeal in both mainstream and Christian music communities.[36] That same year he was honored as Best Musician of the Year by the Christian Country Music Awards.[37] In the late 1990s, Driscoll's varied touring performances included playing and singing for a tour of Handel's Young Messiah to packed stadiums which seated up to 20,000.[38]
2000s
In the early 2000s, Driscoll began a new music and ministry television show, The Phil Driscoll Connection. His early 2000s albums included Spirit of America (2000), One Nation Under God (2003), Classic Hymns (2004), and Drops of Praise (2006). In 2006 he also released Vintage, which included Driscoll's versions of over a dozen classic mainstream singles such as "The Power of Love", "Old Time Rock and Roll", "The Dock of the Bay", "Lean on Me", "Stand by Me", "When a Man Loves a Woman", and "Try a Little Tenderness".[39]
In 2008, Driscoll released the album Songs in the Key of Worship, which includes his vocal and trumpet performance of the classic hymn "I Surrender All", accompanied by guitar. He also released the album Here and Now in 2008. Driscoll continues to perform, minister, and work in a variety of media and locations, including completing his film.[40][41][42] In December 2009, he performed in Lagos, Nigeria in a 12-hour night of music and worship, with an audience of over 500,000.[43] In addition to his autobiographical film, Driscoll is also completing a music feature film, Symphony of the Universe.[14][44][45]
In the 1980s, Driscoll performed for, made presentations and speeches for, and composed the theme song for President Reagan's Just Say No campaign against drugs.[49][50][51][52][53] In 1999, at the personal request of Vice President Al Gore, he accepted a key ministry role at the nationally televised memorial services following the Columbine High School massacre; at the memorial, he performed and sang two songs, one of which he wrote specifically for the service.[49][54][55] On Presidents Day in 2000, Driscoll sang and played "God Bless America" at the Medal of Honor ceremony, at the request of Secretary of DefenseWilliam Cohen.[14][56]
At the 1984 Grammy Awards he played and sang "Amazing Grace", receiving a "deafening" ovation.[57] And at the emotional post-9/11Emmy Awards ceremony in November 2001, he received a standing ovation after he played and sang "America the Beautiful".[58]
Musical style
Driscoll is known for his bluesy and varied style,[59][60] which he also infuses into gospel, inspirational, and patriotic songs. Driscoll's raspy, blues-like voice has been compared to Ray Charles, Joe Cocker[27][61] and Michael Bolton.[62] His sound ranges from classic rock to country, gospel, patriotic, R&B, pop, and classical styles.[1] He is widely known as being a rare white singer who sings in a convincing black gospel style.[63] As one independent 2006 analysis puts it, "Driscoll has a bluesy-gospel ('soul') style and sings in a course, guttural voice that sounds very much like Ray Charles."[64]
He is noted for incorporating the sound of soul, R&B, rock 'n' roll, jazz, and blues into the inspirational genre.[65] "God's funky too", he said in a 1980s interview, noting that he was keen on eliminating stereotyped opinions about inspirational music.[66] In a 1999 interview for Billboard magazine, he reiterated this, saying, "If you're a football player and you become a Christian, you don't suddenly start playing Christian football."[36] Driscoll incorporated his bluesy, soulful jazz horn-playing and singing into Christmas music in his 2000 album, The Spirit of Christmas, which includes a jazz version of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" played on muted flugelhorn and sung in a slow improvisational jazz style.[67]
Musicianship
Driscoll is celebrated for his virtuosic, inspirational, and quite varied trumpet playing. He is also known as one of the few trumpeters who can reach and play well in the very highest of notes and ranges.[68] His combination trumpet and singing performances are noted for their smooth transitions from trumpet playing to singing to glossolalia, and back again.[64] And in addition to his well-known trumpet playing and his distinctive style of singing, Driscoll is also skilled on the keyboard, and on the flugelhorn, and he also performs on the shofar, cornet, and flumpet.
Driscoll married his wife Lynne in 1978. He and Lynne have two children, Jamie and Danielle, and Driscoll has a son, Shawn, from his previous marriage to Patti McDavitt.
He married Darlene Bishop in 2018. He resides in Ohio.[69] Driscoll lived in Cleveland, Tennessee from the early 1980s. In the mid-2000s he relocated to Greensboro, Georgia.[70] Driscoll is an accomplished pilot, with commercial, instrument and multi engine ratings.[71]
Cocaine Trafficking Indictment
In January 1978, Driscoll was one of 32 people indicted by a Texas federal grand jury on charges of being part of a cocaine trafficking conspiracy.[72][73][74][75] Also indicted was actress Linda Blair. Driscoll was arrested after nineteen federal agents surrounded his home during a sting operation stemming from a government wiretap.[76] Following the indictment, Driscoll wrote a letter to the court stating that he had "found God" about three weeks before his arrest, on Christmas Day 1977. Driscoll was charged with three felony counts of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, but was eventually allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of cocaine possession. He was placed on probation and his criminal record later expunged.[72][73][74][75] Driscoll said in a 1986 newspaper interview that he was "doing a lot of drugs", and he was reported to have had a $5,000-dollar a day cocaine habit, prior to his religious conversion and subsequent arrest.[77][78]
Tax Evasion
In 2006, Phil Driscoll and his wife Lynne Driscoll were indicted in U.S. Federal Court for using their Cleveland, Tennessee-based Christian music ministry in an income-tax cheating scheme, failing to report more than $1 million in income and evading the payment of more than $300,000 in taxes from 1996 to 2000.[8][9][10][11][12][13] Also indicted was Lynne Driscoll’s mother, bookkeeper Chris Blankenship, who died just before the trial. The Driscolls ministry took in as much as $2.8 million annually, and according to the prosecution, Phil Driscoll owned an airplane, drove a Porsche, and used money funneled through Mighty Horn Ministries (later renamed Phil Driscoll Ministries and relocated to Eatonton, Georgia), to buy and sell lake houses.[79] Rick Blankenship, brother of Lynne Driscoll and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, testified on behalf of the prosecution that he had worked for Mighty Horn Ministries until he became concerned that “there was little or no differentiation between personal and ministry expenses."[80] On June 8, 2006, Phil Driscoll was found guilty on 2 counts of tax evasion and one count of conspiracy, and was sentenced to serve one year in Federal prison, beginning on March 14, 2007. Following his release, Driscoll wrote and co-produced an autobiographical film about his experiences, starring Danny Glover and Brian Dennehy.[81][82][83]
Politics
Driscoll performed at an Evangelicals for Trump event in Cincinnati in March 2020.[84] He was also a featured musician at the Democratic National Convention in 1992[85], 1996[86] and the 2000 Democratic National Convention.
^"Christian Music on Bill at Six Flags". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. March 31, 1989. p. D6. "Christian musician Phil Driscoll, whose repertoire includes an original anti-drug song titled 'Just Say No,' will perform tonight at the Mount Paran Church of God."