Carving a Niche: Former musician spends days crafting clocks, furniture

Kirk Baird

Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2000 | 9:48 a.m.

For 56 years Lily Phillips has been amazed by her husband, Max.

Take a quick tour through their Las Vegas home and it's easy to see why.

There's not a room in the house that doesn't feature the 84-year-old Max's handiwork: from grandfather clocks and tables to TV trays and sofas, each piece handcarved -- usually created from walnut -- and often with inlays of intricate designs.

And all of this Max accomplished without any formal training -- just an eye for detail and the desire to work with his hands.

"A friend says he lived before in another time, another place," Lily said. "He's reincarnated, that's what everyone thinks, because he does things that he hasn't been shown to do. That's the amazing thing."

Max has a different, less spiritual explanation: "You look at things and they come together."

Simple enough, much like how he got started carving wood. A musician friend of his had a catalog of wooden creations and Max asked to borrow it.

He began to work in his back yard and carved a medium-sized clock, which hangs on the living room wall, still ticking away.

That was in 1964 and, Max is proud to say, the clock has required only three battery changes in that time.

Then he proudly points to his two grandfather clocks. He's made five of them in all, three of which he gave to friends for little more than the cost of the supplies.

"When I watch some of these shows, like 'Price is Right,' where they're giving a clock away that's worth about $3,000 ... well, I don't know what something in solid walnut, handmade with all the inlays is worth then," Lily said.

But making money off his wooden creations was never Max's intention -- he gives most everything away, such as the cheeseboard made of oak with inlays he made for friends.

In fact, woodcarving was nothing more than a hobby to him; Max's first love was music.

A multitalented musician -- he plays the violin and several reed instruments, including the alto saxophone and clarinet -- Max played with most every entertainer on the Strip from the '60s to the early '80s, when a mysterious ailment involving his left arm forced his retirement.

Born and raised in London, as his wife was -- both still have prominent accents -- it was music that drew him to the United States when, in 1957, he joined a big band in Los Angeles. He was seated as first-chair sax, and occasionally played violin.

When Max moved to Las Vegas two years later, however, it was his violin playing that kept him employed. Once in Vegas, he mainly confined his reed-instrument playing to the side bands he routinely formed, which would play on Sundays, his day off from the Strip gigs.

Those are days Max talks about wistfully.

It was a time when headliners such as Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Tony Bennett, Dean Martin and Elvis Presley -- all of whom Max performed with -- played to capacity crowds in the main hotels.

Each entertainer was given an 11-piece house band to perform with, Max said, which did not include a string section. Most performers, at their expense, opted to include a string section for a richer, fuller sound to add to their music.

So they would turn to freelance musicians, or additions, as they were called, such as Max. The jobs proved so steady, he said he almost always had work.

"It was usually coordinated," he said. "(The jobs) always seemed to start and finish within a few days of each other. I think they organized it that way so that the bands and people would be available.

"I went from band to band. My whole life on the Strip was additions. I was booked at the Sahara, Sands, Desert Inn, you name it."

A typical day would have him going to work in the evening and returning home after 2 a.m.

Unlike many of his peers, however, who would sleep in until the afternoon, Max would begin his day sometime between 8 and 9 a.m.

"He would come home from work and say, 'I've got to get up early tomorrow; I want to get on with this clock,' " Lily said. "He just kept on doing it, started making them for his friends -- different styles and different ideas."

He became so prodigious, he made a workbench that he put on the backyard patio. It's a large wooden/metal creation with various levels where he keeps his tools and scraps. "It's 30 years old,' he said proudly as he stood next next to the bench. "And it's still standing."

And just about every day Max can be found toiling away -- even in the summer heat -- on his latest creation.

A project can take anywhere from a few days to several months to complete, depending on the size, and he never works on more than one piece at a time.

When asked how many items he's created over the years, Max said he had no idea, but estimated he's made more than 100 clocks.

"I'm not mad about clocks," he said, "they're just easier to make."

Lily said that there were at least 30 pieces in the home. And that's not including his framed illustrations that line the walls.

"I like to draw things that you don't have to be told (what) they are. And I don't think you need to be told who those three are," Max said as he pointed to three framed drawings on the living room wall: Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill and George Bernard Shaw.

Other than occasionally playing a song or two on the clarinet at the request of his wife, Max's musical past is now behind him.

"You see this," he said as he held his left arm up only to have it slowly sink. "I'm not doing that. That's what it's doing itself."

The problem happened suddenly in 1982 while he was performing with Tony Bennett. "He came home that night and said, 'My arm was funny tonight. I wonder what it was,' " Lily said.

Max went to a chiropractor the next day and then to a masseur. The problem went away for six days, he said, "and I said, 'Oh, thank God, it's over.' And then it came back and never went away."

A year later, for all intents and purposes, he put his instruments away for good.

"He could make it sound nice at home, but it wouldn't be comfortable to stand in front of a group and (have) the arm misbehave," Lily said. "He wasn't sure of himself and he might come up with some bad notes."

When asked if it bothered him to have to stop performing in front of an audience, Max was rather succinct.

"Of course it does, but if you can't play, you can't play," he said. "You have to resign yourself to the fact that it's over. You have to find other things to do."

"I must say, he didn't take it lying down," Lily said. "He just got on with his woodwork. There's not a time he's not making something.

"He'll think of something else and do it. Sometimes I can't believe all the things he's made, he's made so many of them."

And she has a home full of his handiwork to prove it.