Sam Phillips stood perfectly still, hands at her waist, staring straight ahead for most of her set on Tuesday night. Her expression was birdlike and quizzical; now and then, she would turn her head and share a sly smile with her band (which included her producer and husband, T Bone Burnett, on guitar). Her observant stillness was suited to songs that contemplate truth and beauty, good and evil and love and loss, not telling stories but spinning oracular images. Her voice, raw and tremulous but somehow in tune, makes philosophizing sound like confessions as she sings lines like "You censor longing and organize beauty because you're afraid."
Ms. Phillips, who started her career singing Christian pop under the name Leslie Phillips, doesn't proselytize any more. In her current single, "I Need Love," she specifically rejects "the political church." But questions of ethics and of ultimate meaning still preoccupy her; now, she treats them as a personal struggle with no clear answers.
The clarity in her songs comes from their classic pop structures. On her current album, "Martinis and Bikinis" (Virgin), and with her band at the Bottom Line, she surrendered to her Beatles influences. Her set echoed Beatles songs from "Drive My Car" to "Within You, Without You"; in fact, many of her melody lines had turns reminiscent of the Beatles' flirtations with raga.
For encores, Ms. Phillips returned without the band, for songs about more private tumult and yearning. No longer having to cut through the band, her voice grew gentler, promising more intimacy. But she remained a watcher, contemplating situations she longed to change.