Utah Phillips

"The golden voice of the great American Southwest," Bruce "U. Utah" Phillips was not one to take retirement sitting down. Retired from touring after 1996 and plagued with heart problems that eventually ended his life in 2008 at age 73, the politically conscious Nevada City, CA-based singer and storyteller remained active and involved as long as possible, writing to his family and friends shortly before his death, "My body is weak but my will is strong, and I keep my disposition as sunny and humorous as I’m able." Utah Phillips added, "The future? I don’t know. But I have songs in a folder I’ve never paid attention to, and songs inside me waiting for me to bring them out. Through all of it, up and down, it’s the song. It’s always been the song."

Phillips' political awareness was inherited from his parents who were union organizers in the 1930s. His mother worked for the C.I.O. before it merged with the A.F.L. As a youngster, Phillips was influenced by his exposure to the theater after his parents were divorced and his mother was remarried to the manager of the Hippodrome in Cleveland, one of the last of the old vaudeville houses. His involvement with the theater continued after moving with his mother and stepfather to Utah in 1947. Although his stepfather founded Film Service International and his stepbrother went on to become a producer for Universal Studios, Phillips found his creativity pulled in another direction, running away from so much that his mother started wrapping his lunch in a road map.

After cutting his early musical teeth on a baritone ukulele on which he learned to play from Ukulele Ike songbooks, Phillips' musical direction was altered after he left home and traveled to Yellowstone Park to work on a road crew. The older workers on the crew, who played guitars and sang old Jimmie Rodgers and Gene Autry songs, taught Phillips how to turn ukulele chords into guitar chords by adding a couple of fingers. As a soldier during the Korean conflict, Phillips continued to find refuge in music and helped to form a band, the Rice Paddy Ramblers. A turning point in his growing political awareness came when he attended a concert in a Korean theater by black vocalist Marian Anderson. The experience caused Phillips to recall the anger that he felt when Anderson had come to Utah to perform at his stepfather's theater and she had been refused entry into the town's hotel.

Phillips' political awakening continued after he returned to the United States. Befriended by Ammon Hennessey at the Joe Hill House for Transients and Migrants, he was convinced to become a pacifist. Phillips' use of music as a political weapon was strongly influenced by Hennessey. On the way to a demonstration at a Hiroshima peace memorial, Phillips was encouraged to write his first song, "The Enola Gay." Writing the song stirred a new understanding of the power of music as Phillips realized that a song, besides being entertaining, could be inspirational. Phillips has been a card-carrying member of the Industrial Workers of the World (the Wobblies) for more than 40 years. Although he misplaced his membership card in Korea, he had it reinstated after returning to the United States.

While he sang in taverns where money would be thrown into his guitar case, Phillips had little understanding of folk music. The situation changed when Phillips was approached by folklorist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Kenneth S. Goldstein, who had traveled to Utah to attend a folklore conference in 1960. Overheard by Goldstein, as he sat on his front porch singing, Phillips was invited to record his first album, No One Knows Me, on a rented tape recorder at the local university.

Phillips continued to balance his love of music with his political involvement. In the early '60s, he was involved with Fair Play for Cuba and the struggle for open housing laws in Utah. In 1968, he was nominated and campaigned for the U.S. Senate on the Peace and Freedom ticket. Although he received 6,000 votes, the experience led to Phillips being dismissed from his job with the Utah State Archives. Following the election, Phillips remained in Utah for a year, working for the Migrant Council and living on a cot in the back of a big warehouse called "the Cosmic Airplane." Encouraged by friends, including folksinger Rosalie Sorrels, to try his hand at performing, Phillips moved to the East Coast in 1969. Temporarily stopping in New York's Greenwich Village, Phillips settled, for several years, in Sarasota Springs, NY, where he became a regular performer at Cafe Lena.

In 1991, Phillips toured with Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Spider John Koerner. Their performance at the World Theater in Minneapolis was taped and released as Legends of Folk the following year. Later in the '90s, an album of his stories and between-song patter set to music by Ani DiFranco, The Past Didn't Go Anywhere, introduced his anarchistic persona to a young audience, while Loafer's Glory, a collection of stories, poems, and songs set to the accompaniment of Woody Guthrie-influenced guitarist Mark Ross, showed his longtime audience that he still had something of importance to say. In addition to two of his earlier albums -- El Capitan and All Used Up -- being released as The Telling Takes Me Home, Phillips' work was honored with an album-length celebration of his songs by bluegrass duo Jody Stecher & Kate Brislin, Heart Songs: The Old Time Country Songs of Utah Phillips, that received a Grammy nomination as Best Traditional Folk Album of 1997. Phillips and Ross initially worked together in the late '80s when Phillips contracted focal dystonia in his right hand, which prevented him from fingerpicking, and Dupuytren's contracture in his left hand, which made it difficult for him to make a chord. His collaboration with DiFranco was instigated by a letter that he received from the hard-edged acoustic performer. The stories that DiFranco set to music were culled from over 100 hours of his live performances.

Although he slowed his touring down to one performance a month in his later years before ceasing them entirely, he found other mediums in which to express his music and political concerns. Phillips, who had run for president annually since 1969, hosted a weekly one-hour radio show, Loafer's Glory: The Hobo Jungle of the Mind, broadcast by KPSA in Berkeley, CA over the Pacifica network between 1997 and 2001. In addition to being aired on the five stations owned by Pacifica, the show was made available to any community radio station at no charge. Released in 1999, The Moscow Hold featured more of his stories and poems.

To the end, Utah Phillips remained acutely aware of what was truly important in life. "I spent a long time finding my way -- couches, floors, big towns, small towns, marginal pay (folk wages)," he wrote in his final letter to family and friends. "But I found that people seemed to like what I was doing. The folk music family took me in, carried me along, and taught me the value of song far beyond making a living. It taught me that I don’t need wealth, I don’t need power, and I don’t need fame. What I need is friends, and that’s what I found -- everywhere -- and not just among those on the stage, but among those in front of the stage as well."

from Wikipedia:

Bruce Duncan "Utah" Phillips (May 15, 1935 – May 23, 2008) was a labor organizer, folk singer, storyteller, poet and the "Golden Voice of the Great Southwest". He described the struggles of labor unions and the power of direct action, self-identifying as an anarchist. He often promoted the Industrial Workers of the World in his music, actions, and words.

Biography

Early years

Phillips was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Edwin Deroger Phillips and Frances Kathleen Coates. He attended East High School in Salt Lake City, Utah. His father, Edwin Phillips, was a labor organizer, and his parents' activism influenced much of his life's work. Phillips was a card-carrying member of the Industrial Workers of the World, the "wobblies," headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Phillips rode the railroads, and wrote songs.

He served in the United States Army for three years beginning in 1956 (at the latest). Witnessing the devastation of post-war Korea greatly influenced his social and political thinking.

Career

Following service, he returned to Salt Lake City, Utah, and joined Ammon Hennacy from the Catholic Worker Movement in establishing a mission house of hospitality named after the activist Joe Hill. Phillips worked at the Joe Hill House for the next eight years, then ran for the U.S. Senate as a candidate of Utah's Peace and Freedom Party in 1968. He received 2,019 votes (0.5%) in an election won by Republican Wallace F. Bennett. He also ran for president of the United States in 1976 for the Do-Nothing Party.

He adopted the name U. Utah Phillips in emulation of country vocalist T. Texas Tyler.

Phillips met folk singer Rosalie Sorrels in the early 1950s, and remained a close friend of hers. It was Sorrels who started playing the songs that Phillips wrote, and through her his music began to spread. After leaving Utah in the late 1960s, he went to Saratoga Springs, New York, where he was befriended by the folk community at the Caffé Lena coffee house, where he became a staple performer throughout that decade.

Phillips was a proud member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or Wobblies). His view of unions and politics were shaped by his parents, especially his Mom who was a labor organizer for the CIO. But Phillips was more of a Christian anarchist and a pacifist, so found the modern-day Wobblies to be the perfect fit for him, an iconoclast and artist. In recent years, perhaps no single person did more to spread the Wobbly gospel than Phillips, whose countless concerts were, in effect, organizing meetings for the cause of labor, unions, anarchism, pacifism, and the Wobblies. He was a tremendous interpreter of classic Wobbly tunes including "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum," "The Preacher and the Slave," and "Bread and Roses."

An avid trainhopper, Phillips recorded several albums of music related to the railroads, especially the era of steam locomotives. His first recorded album, Good Though!, is an example, and contains such songs as "Daddy, What's a Train?" and "Queen of the Rails" as well as what may be his most famous composition, "Moose Turd Pie" wherein he tells a tall tale of his work as a gandy dancer repairing track in the Southwestern United States desert.

In 1991 Phillips recorded, in one take, an album of song, poetry and short stories entitled I've Got To Know, inspired by his anger at the first Gulf War. The album includes "Enola Gay," his first composition written about the United States' atomic attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Phillips was a mentor to Kate Wolf. He recorded songs and stories with Rosalie Sorrels on a CD called The Long Memory (1996), originally a college project "Worker's Doxology" for 1992 'cold-drill Magazine' Boise State University. His protégée, Ani DiFranco, recorded two CDs, The Past Didn't Go Anywhere (1996) and Fellow Workers (1999), with him. He was nominated for a Grammy Award for his work with DiFranco. His "Green Rolling Hills" was made into a country hit by Emmylou Harris, and "The Goodnight-Loving Trail" became a classic as well, being recorded by Ian Tyson, Tom Waits, and others.

Later years

Though known primarily for his work as a concert performer and labor organizer, Phillips also worked as an archivist, dishwasher, and warehouse-man.

Phillips was a member of various socio-political organizations and groups throughout his life. A strong supporter of labor struggles, he was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers (Mine Mill), and the Travelling Musician's Union AFM Local 1000. In solidarity with the poor, he was also an honorary member of Dignity Village, a homeless community. A pacifist, he was a member of Veterans for Peace and the Peace Center of Nevada County.

In his personal life, Phillips enjoyed varied hobbies and interests. These included Egyptology; amateur chemistry; linguistics; history (Asian, African, Mormon and world); futhark; debate; and poetry. He also enjoyed culinary hobbies, such as pickling, cooking and gardening.

He married Joanna Robinson on July 31, 1989, in Nevada City.

Phillips became an elder statesman for the folk music community, and a keeper of stories and songs that might otherwise have passed into obscurity. He was also a member of the great Traveling Nation, the community of hobos and railroad bums that populates the Midwest United States along the rail lines, and was an important keeper of their history and culture. He also became an honorary member of numerous folk societies in the U.S.A. and Canada.

When Kate Wolf grew ill and was forced to cancel concerts, she asked Phillips to fill in. Suffering from an ailment which makes it more difficult to play guitar, Phillips hesitated, citing his declining guitar ability. "Nobody ever came just to hear you play," she said. Phillips told this story as a way of explaining how his style over the years became increasingly based on storytelling instead of just songs. He was a gifted storyteller and monologist, and his concerts generally had an even mix of spoken word and sung content. He attributed much of his success to his personality. "It is better to be likeable than talented," he often said, self-deprecatingly.

Until it lost its funding, Phillips hosted his own weekly radio show, Loafer's Glory: The Hobo Jungle of the Mind, originating on KVMR and nationally syndicated.

Phillips lived in Nevada City, California, for 21 years where he worked on the start-up of the Hospitality House, a homeless shelter, and the Peace and Justice Center. "It's my town. Nevada City is a primary seed-bed for community organizing."

In August 2007, Phillips announced that he would undergo catheter ablation to address his heart problems. Later that autumn, Phillips announced that due to health problems he could no longer tour. By January 2008, he decided against a heart transplant.

Phillips died May 23, 2008 in Nevada City, California, from complications of heart disease, at the age of 73. He was survived by his wife, sons, Duncan and Brendan, and a daughter, Morrigan. Following a private service, a public memorial was held on June 1, in Pioneer Park, in Nevada City. His service was officiated by Meghan Cefalu, a Unitarian Universalist pastor. Phillips is buried in Forest View Cemetery in Nevada City.