His song "Denomination Blues" criticizes sectarianism in organized religion and hypocritical preachers.

On September 20, 1954, he died of head injuries,[1] sustained in a fall down a flight of stairs at the welfare office in Teague.

He was buried in an unmarked grave in Cotton Gin Cemetery, six miles west of Teague.

[4][5] Some sources suggest his birthdate as c. 1892 and/or his date and place of death as December, 1938 in Austin State Hospital.

A photograph in The Louisiana Weekly of January 14, 1928, shows Phillips holding two fretless zither-like instruments.

[7] In the 1960s, Frank B. Walker identified Phillips' instrument to musicologist and author Paul Oliver as a "dulceola", saying that "nobody else on earth could use it except him".

[8] In 2016, journalist Michael Corcoran Michael Corcoran (journalist) discovered a 1907 newspaper article which reported that Phillips' name for his instrument was a "manzarene", and further described it as "a box about 2×3 feet, 6 inches deep, [on] which he has strung violin strings, something on the order of an autoharp...