Phil Phillips With The Twilights

Phil Phillips' most famous song, "Sea of Love", peaked at #1 on the U.S. Billboard R&B chart and #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1959. In the UK, Marty Wilde covered the song, and Phil Phillips' version failed to chart there. It was the only top 40 chart song for Phillips, who never recorded another hit. The song has been covered by a number of artists since then, most notably by The Honeydrippers, whose version (from their album Volume One) reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and #1 on the adult contemporary chart in 1984. Tom Waits gave the song a darker twist for the soundtrack to the 1989 Harold Becker film Sea of Love starring Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin, and Waits included it on his 2006 collection Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards. "Sea of Love" had made the Top 40 just one other time, when Del Shannon took it to #33 in 1981.