Utah Phillips was a legend. In Memoriam....!

[David Rovics] Some Thoughts on Utah Phillips

I was watching my baby daughter sleep in her carseat outside of the 
Sacramento airport about ten hours ago when I noticed a missed call from 
Brendan Phillips. He's in a band called Fast Rattler with several friends 
of mine, two of whom live in my new hometown of Portland, Oregon, one of 
whom needed a ride home from the Greyhound station. I called back, and soon 
thereafter heard the news from Brendan that his father had died the night 
before in his sleep, when his heart stopped beating.

I wouldn't want to elevate anybody to inappropriately high heights, but for 
me, Utah Phillips was a legend.

I first became familiar with the Utah Phillips phenomenon in the late 80's,
when I was in my early twenties, working part-time as a prep cook at
Morningtown in Seattle. I had recently read Howard Zinn's A People's
History of the United States, and had been particularly enthralled by the
early 20th Century section, the stories of the Industrial Workers of the
World. So it was with great interest that I first discovered a greasy
cassette there in the kitchen by the stereo, Utah Phillips Sings the Songs
and Tells the Stories of the Industrial Workers of the World.

As a young radical, I had heard lots about the 1960's. There were (and are)
plenty of veterans of the struggles of the 60's alive and well today. But
the wildly tumultuous era of the first two decades of the 20th century is
now (and pretty well was then) a thing entirely of history, with no one
living anymore to tell the stories. And while long after the 60's there
will be millions of hours of audio and video recorded for posterity, of the
massive turn-of-the-century movement of the industrial working class there
will be virtually none of that.

To hear Utah tell the stories of the strikes and the free speech fights,
recounting hilariously the day-to-day tribulations of life in the hobo
jungles and logging camps, singing about the humanity of historical figures
such as Big Bill Haywood, Joe Hill or Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, was to bring
alive an era that at that point only seemed to exist on paper, not in the
reality of the senses. But Utah didn't feel like someone who was just
telling stories from a bygone era -- it was more like he was a bridge to
that era.

Hearing these songs and stories brought to life by him, I became infected
by the idea that if people just knew this history in all it's beauty and
grandeur, they would find the same hope for humanity and for the
possibility for radical social change that I had just
found through Utah.

Thus, I became a Wobbly singer, too. I began to stand on a street corner on
University Way with a sign beside me that read, "Songs of the Seattle
General Strike of 1919." I mostly sang songs I learned from listening to
Utah's cassette, plus some other IWW songs I found in various obscure
collections of folk music that I came across.It was a couple years later
that I first really discovered Utah Phillips, the songwriter. I had by this
time immersed myself with great enthusiasm in the work of many contemporary
performers in what gets called the folk music scene, and had developed a
keen appreciation for the varied and brilliant songwriting of Jim Page and
others. Then, in 1991, I came across Utah's new cassette, I've Got To Know,
and soon thereafter heard a copy of a much earlier recording, Good Though.

Whether he's recounting stories from his own experiences or those of others
doesn't matter. There is no need to know, for in the many hours Utah spent
in his troubled youth talking with old, long-dead veterans of the rails and
the IWW campaigns, a bridge from now to then was formed in this person, in
his pen and in his deep, resonant voice. In Good Though I heard the distant
past breathing and full of life in Utah's own compositions, just as they
breathed in his renditions of older songs.

In I've Got To Know I heard an eloquent and current voice of opposition to
the American Empire and the bombing of Iraq, rolled together seamlessly
with the voices of deserters, draft dodgers and
tax resisters of the previous century.

In reference to the power of lying propaganda, a friend of mine used to say
it takes ten minutes of truth to counteract 24 hours of lies. But upon
first hearing Utah's song, "Yellow Ribbon," it seemed to me that perhaps
that ratio didn't give the power of truth enough credit. It seemed to me
that if the modern soldiers of the empire would have a chance to hear
Utah's monologues there about his anguish after his time in the Army in
Korea, or the breathtakingly simple depiction of life under the junta in El
Salvador in his song "Rice and Beans," they would just have to quit the
military.

Utah made it clear in word and in deed that steeping yourself in the
tradition was required of any good practitioner of the craft, and I did my
best to follow in his footsteps and do just that. I learned lots of Utah's
songs as well as the old songs he was playing. Making a living busking in
the Boston subways for years, I ran into other folks who were doing just
that, as well as writing great songs, such as Nathan Phillips (no
relation). Nathan was from West Virginia, and did haunting versions of "The
Green Rolling Hills of West Virginia," "Larimer Street," "All Used Up," and
other songs. In different T stops at the same time, Nathan and I could
often be found both singing the songs of Utah Phillips for the passersby.

Traveling around the US in the 1990's and since then, it seemed that Utah's
music had, on a musical level, had the same kind of impact that Zinn's
People's History or somewhat earlier works such as Jeremy Brecher's book,
Strike!, had had in written form -- bringing alive vital history that had
been all but forgotten. With Ani DiFranco's collaboration with Utah, this
became doubly true, seemingly overnight, and this man who had had a loyal
cult following before suddenly had, if not what might be called popularity,
at least a loyal cult following that was now twice as big as it had been in
the pre-Ani era.

I had had the pleasure of hearing Utah live in concert only once in the
early 90's, doing a show with another great songwriter, Charlie King, in
the Boston area. I was looking forward to hearing him play again around
there in 1995, but what was to be a Utah Phillips concert turned into a
benefit for Utah's medical expenses, when he had to suddenly drastically
cut down on his touring, due to heart problems. I think there were about
twenty different performers doing renditions of Utah Phillips' songs at
Club Passim that night. I did "Yellow Ribbon."

Traveling in the same circles and putting out CDs on the same record label,
it was fairly inevitable that we'd meet eventually. The first time was
several years ago, if memory serves me, behind the stage at the annual
protest against the School of the Americas in Columbus, Georgia. I think I
successfully avoided seeming too painfully star-struck. Utah was
complaining to me earnestly about how he didn't know what to do at these
protests, didn't feel like he had good protest material. I think he did
just fine, though I can't recall what he did.

Utah lived in Nevada City, and the last time I was there he came to the
community radio station while I was appearing on a show. This was soon
after Katrina, and I remember singing my song, "New Orleans," and Utah
saying embarrassingly nice things. I was on a little tour with Norman
Solomon speaking and me singing, and we had done an event the night before
in town, which Utah was too tired to attend, if I recall.

Me, Utah, Norman, and my companion, Reiko, went over to a nice breakfast
place after the radio show, talked and ate breakfast. Utah did most of the
talking, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that his use of mysterious
hobo colloquialisms and frequent references to obscure historical
characters in twentieth-century American anarchist history was something he
did off stage as well as on.

I've passed near enough to that part of California many times since then.
Called once when I was nearby and he was out of town, doing a show in
Boston. Otherwise I just thought about calling and dropping by, but didn't
take the time. Life was happening, and taking a day or two off in Nevada
City was always something that I never quite seemed to find the time for.
Always figured next time I'll have more time, I'll call him then. It had
been thirteen years since he found out about his heart problems, and he
hadn't kicked the bucket yet... Of course, now I wish I had taken the time
when I had the chance, and I'm sure there are many other people who feel
the same way.

In any case, for those of us who knew his music, whether from recordings or
concerts, for those of us who knew Utah from his stories on or off the
stage, whether we knew him as that human bridge to the radical labor
movement of yesterday, or as the voice of the modern-day hobos, or as that
funky old guy that Ani did a couple of CDs with, Utah Phillips will be
remembered and treasured by many.

He was undeniably a sort of musical-political-historical institution in his
own day. He said he was a rumor in his own time. No question, one man's
rumor is another man's legend, but who cares, it's just words anyway.

http://www.davidrovics.com

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Folk singer Utah Phillips dies in California
 
Nate Carlisle and Lindsay Whitehurst
 
Article Last Updated: 05/24/2008 
 
 Folk singer and activist Bruce "Utah" Phillips, whose 
songs included tales of the state's working class and tragedies, died 
Friday of congestive heart failure.
 
Phillips, 73, died in Nevada City, Calif., where he resided. While not 
among the biggest names in folk music, Phillips described himself as the 
"Golden Voice of the Great Southwest" and was an influence for artists such 
as Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, Joan Baez and Tom Waits, who have 
recorded his songs. An album Phillips recorded with Ani DiFranco received a 
Grammy nomination.
 
"Many artists extract from working and poor people for authenticity," 
friend and environmental writer Jordan Fisher Smith said. "He also gave it 
back ... he extracted the meaning and gave it back to the people 
experiencing it."
 
Phillips songs included "John D. Lee," a recounting of the Mountain Meadows 
Massacre. Another song, "Scofield Mine Disaster" recalled the 1900 central 
Utah coal mine explosion that killed 200 people.
 
"A miner's life is hard I know," Phillips wrote and sang. "His world is 
dark and far below/While he starves and goes in rags/He's cheaper than the 
coal he digs."
 
Phillips son, Duncan Phillips, who lives in Salt Lake City, said his father 
was enthralled with Utah's working class, particularly Mormons and their 
folklore.
 
"They were kind of put aside and chased off like a lot of other people in 
the world are," Duncan Phillips said. "He tried to look at both sides of 
things and understand people and bring some common ground."
 
Born May 15, 1935, in Cleveland to labor organizer parents, Bruce Phillips 
and his family came to Utah in 1947. His parents became distributors for 
Paramount movie studio and owned the Capitol Theatre and Tower Theatre 
until their deaths, Duncan Phillips said.
 
Bruce Phillips served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. Disturbed by 
the fighting, Bruce Phillips returned to the states and was drinking and 
"bumming" on freight trains when he ended up in the Joe Hill House, a Salt 
Lake City homeless shelter named for a labor organizer.
 
He went on to work as an archivist for the state, where he learned much of 
Utah's history.
 
Ken Sanders, owner of Ken Sanders Rare Books in Salt Lake City, met 
Phillips in the 1960s.
"He was always working on the rights of others," he said. "He spent an 
awful lot of his life bumming around the country, spent a little of his 
life as a hobo. He was never in one city for a long time."
 
Bruce Phillips left Salt Lake City in 1969, believing that a failed run for 
the U.S. Senate with the Peace and Freedom party left him blacklisted.
 
"He tried to get work and everywhere turned him down," Duncan Phillips said.
 
A short time later, he released his first album. After years of touring, 
Bruce Phillips settled in Nevada City, Calif., with his fourth wife Joanna 
Robinson.
 
He used his music and notoriety to remain an activist. In 2005, he told The 
Tribune, "When I go play a town I haven't been to in a while, I want them 
to send me the newspaper so I can get caught up on the local issues. Then I 
go to the library and read up on the history and economic base and economic 
distribution so I know the right questions to ask."
 
Phillips played in Utah as recently as January 2007 at a folk revival at 
Highland High School.

Phillips' other survivors include another son and a daughter, several 
stepchildren, brothers and sisters and a grandchild. The family requests 
memorial donations go to Hospitality House, a homeless shelter founded by 
Phillips in Grass Valley, Calif.

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TODAY'S DEMOCRACY NOW!:

* The "Golden Voice of the Great Southwest": Legendary Folk Musician, 
Activist Utah Phillips, 1935-2008 *

Utah Phillips, the legendary folk musician and peace and labor activist,
has died at the age of seventy-three. Over the span of nearly four decades,
Utah Phillips worked in what he referred to as "the Trade," performing
tirelessly throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. The son of
labor organizers, Phillips was a lifelong member of the Industrial Workers
of the World, known as the Wobblies. As a teenager, he ran away from home
and started living as a hobo who rode the rails and wrote songs about his
experiences. In 1956, he joined the Army and served in the Korean War, an
experience he would later refer to as the turning point of his life. In
1968, he ran for the US Senate on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket.

For the past twenty-one years he lived in Nevada City, where he started a
nationally syndicated folk music radio show. He also helped found the
Hospitality House homeless shelter and the Peace and Justice Center. We
spend the hour with an interview with Phillips from January 2004
.
Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/27/utah_phillips_1935_2008_legendary