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Utah Phillips: Folk Singer, Philosopher, Labor Activist |
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Bruce ”Utah” Phillips, the son of labor organizers, a “One-Big-Union” Wobbly and a unique musician and story-telling voice for worker justice and everyday folks, died May 23. He was 73.
The New York Times said Phillips was
an instinctively independent guitar-slinger and self-described anarchist with an affinity for history and a trove of one-liners.…His sets were monologues that interspersed anecdotes, political jabs and wry observations with songs—some traditional, some from the labor movement and some he had written.
Folksinger, and sometimes performing partner, Rosalie Sorrels called Phillips an “alchemist.”
He took the stories of working people and railroad bums, and he built them into work that was influenced by writers like Thomas Wolfe, but then he gave it back; he put it in language so the people whom the songs and stories were about still had them, still owned them. He didn’t believe in stealing culture from the people it was about.
He served with the U.S. Army in the Korean War and carried the trauma and psychic scars home. In a 2006 interview with Works in Progress, a newspaper in Olympia, Wash., he said:
I was very angry and frightened by what I’d seen and what I had done there. I got on the freight trains, and I rode for quite a while to try to sort myself out. I think I was drunk most of the time.
In the late 1950’s, Phillips ended up in Salt Lake City, Utah, and found shelter and help at the Joe Hill House, a homeless shelter operated by Ammon Hennacy, an anarchist and member of the Catholic Worker movement.
In an appreciation, Jordan Fisher Smith and Molly Fisk write at MRzine Monthly Review:
Phillips credited Hennacy and other social reformers he referred to as his “elders” with having provided a philosophical framework around which he later constructed songs and stories he intended as a template his audiences could employ to understand their own political and working lives. They were often hilarious, sometimes sad, but never shallow.
Phillips worked at the Joe Hill House through the 1960s and also got a gig as an archivist for the state of Utah. He joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and in 1968 ran for the U.S. Senate on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket. He lost.
He then headed back East and joined a circle of activist folks singers in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. He adopted his stage name, “U. Utah,” after T. Texas Tyler, a singer he admired.
For nearly 40 years, he made his living singing and playing at festivals, coffeehouses and concerts throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. In a 2007 podcast on his website, Phillips said he spent his time
learning how to make a living, not a killing. I discovered a dignified, ancient, elegant trade, one where I could own what I do and never have to have a boss again.
Perhaps his two most successful and popular albums were recorded with Ani DiFranco. Their album “Fellow Workers” was nominated for a Grammy award in 2000. His songs have been recorded by Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, Joan Baez, Tom Waits, Joe Ely and others. In 1997, he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Folk Alliance.
In 2005, Phillips opened the Hospitality House, a homeless shelter in Nevada City, Calif., where he was living. He also helped the Peace Center of Nevada City. He is survived by his wife, Joanna Robinson, two sons, a daughter and two stepchildren.
If you want to hear Utah Phillips’ music, “Fellow Workers” is available from the Union Shop Online™. Also, a 2005 radio interview with Phillips at the weekly labor radio show, “Building Bridges,” is available for downloading or streaming here and here.
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