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Carl Hazen
14 years ago

I moved to Grass Valley in 1996. Never heard of Utah before then. Some friends i made after being here awhile told me about him and then I met Utah in town. I think I might have rubbed him the wrong way a bit but I found him to be approachable, friendly, a wealth of knowledge, a Damn good story teller and I saw him perform every chance I could. I grew to really love the guy and thought he was a hell of a guy.Wish I could known the man better. If there are trains in heaven, Utah is riding in style.....................

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Scott Walker
15 years ago

I never had the opportunity to meet Utah, having only encountered his wisdom a few years before he stepped out. His words on the Ani album were my introduction to one of the greatest minds I have ever found. His past, in the military, echo my own path four decades later. His thoughts and opinions and above all, his stories will continue to impact fortunate souls for many, many, years to come. Some have said they never met someone they couldn't love. I've never loved someone I couldn't meet, until now. Fly on, my friend, and wish us luck.

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Joseph Kelly
15 years ago

I was introduced to Utah Phillips more than eleven years ago. The woman I was dating was an Ani di Franco fan. I had never heard of either. It was sometime around Christmas and all the anxiety in the world was forcing itself upon me. We were on our way to her mothers house when she switched the CD from one Ani to another. I had grown appreciative of Ani's music over the preceeding weeks. She has one those voices that has the to ressurect the dead and hibernating goose bumps in me. What I heard first was not Ms. DiFranco but a gruff old man who reminded me a bit of Geroge Carlin. In fact at first I mistook the voice and vocally misidentified it. As I listened I found myself hearing each and every word. Unlike my normal listening habits where the melody and the beat of the music was all my mind processed. I felt as though Utah was speaking to me. The more I listened the more I was certain that he was. That relationship died. Its one of my largest regrets in life. Not the end of the relationship but how I allowed it to end. The only positive I remember of my time with Jennifer is listening to Utah Phillips tell the greatest stories I've ever heard. When my relationship ended with Jennifer I let Utah go too. It wasnt something I planned or even thought about. It just happpened. I left alot of other mutual friends too. I was tooling around on Myspace today, just looking for old friends. Oddly Jennifer's name came to mind. Its the first time in many, many years. As soon as I thought of her I remembered Utah and quickly forgot Jennifer again. My first search for Utah broke my heart. The first and most recent hit was a death announcement.... I've spent the last 4 hours watching videos of him on YouTube wishing I didn't let him go without a fight. Utah Phillips taught me so very much through his stories. Most importantly how not to be an indifferent pedistrian in life. If his Friends and Family should happen to see this message, please know that my heart aches for your loss. With Metta, <a href="http:// myspace.com/shakesxxix">Joseph Kelly</a>

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Bill Nevins
15 years ago

During a time of personal and public trouble here in New Mexico--blind authorities shutting down local high school poetry team for being not sufficiently war like--I got a phone call from Utah Phillips wanting to interview me. I was shocked and pleased and overjoyed to meet the man I have admired for my whole adult life, and we interviewed each other. That was the start of an all too brief few years of friendship and infrequent contacts, but I treasure every phone call and letter as I do all Utah's stories, songs, poems and smiles. He was a man of wisdom, kindness, generosity and strength. What better memory can there be in this world? We will hold a tribute to Utah here in Santa Fe NM on July 14 and I hope all his friends in the southwest will come join with us. bill_nevins@yahoo.com Bill Nevins Albuquerque NM FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Bill 505 264 6979 piecefront@yahoo.com Legendary New Mexico Songwriter Kell Robertson Headlines Tribute to Utah Phillips Santa Fe–Legendary 78-old New Mexico “beat” poet-songwriter Kell Robertson will make a rare public appearance to headline A Tribute to Utah Phillips concert at Santa Fe Brewing Company, Monday, July 14, 2008, starting at 7 pm. Joining Kell onstage to honor their mutual friend and inspiration, the late bard Utah Phillips, will be Joe West, Kendall McCook, Mitch Rayes, Richard Malcolm (of Burning Moonlight) and White Buffalo Music Presents Georgie Angel. Additional guests and friends of both Kell and Utah are expected to show up and sit in. Bill Nevins, contributing editor of Albuquerque ARTS monthly, will MC the evening. Admission is only $5 at the door, and fine food and beverages will be available. www.santafebrewing.com This will be a rousing evening of music, stories, poetry and gentle rebellion, as befits the memory of the late Utah Phillips, the widely beloved songsmith, union advocate and raconteur who collaborated with Ani DiFranco on Grammy-nominated albums. Kell Robertson, a long time friend and comrade-in-song of Utah Phillips, is himself an American treasure who has lived quietly in the Santa Fe area for the past ten years. He has performed his music and poetry from San Francisco to New York City .. For several years he tended bar and performed at the Thunderbird in Placitas, where he played and sang with the likes of Lightnin' Hopkins and hosted poetry and sang at Silva's Saloon in Bernalillo. Kell lived in San Francisco for many years in the late 50s and early 60s, where he made his living singing at noted venues such as Vesuvio's and the Coffee Gallery, favorite hang outs for Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Diane di Prima, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and other Beat writers of the fabled North Beach scene. Kell’s songs, recorded on the albums Cool & Dark Inside and When You Come Down Off the Mountain, are finely crafted and heartfelt music of the American West. Although mostly retired from performing, Kell composes poetry and still writes and plays his guitar every night on the secluded farm where he lives near Cerillos. A new collection of poetry is expected later this year from Pathwise Press www.pathwisepress.com/Bear_Crossing.htm The musicians joining and accompanying Kell Robertson onstage in tribute to Utah Phillips are all veteran performers in the Americana , blues and folk genres, well known to New Mexico audiences. Santa Fe ’s Joe West, known for his renditions of Utah Phillips songs, has been praised by the national magazine Dirty Linen for his edgy humor and warm stage presence, in the Santa Fe All Stars and other bands. Kendall McCook, like Utah himself, is a true “voice of the great Southwest” and a master story teller. Mitch Rayes is a poet and songwriter from Albuquerque who has travelled manys the hard winding road. Richard Malcolm, also from Burque, is a practitioner of the deep blues. And Georgie Angel is a Pecos-Santa Fe “outlaw” music legend himself. It is a rare treat to have these desperados on a stage together for an evening of song-sharing in tribute to Utah Phillips and the wild spirit of what has been called “that old weird America”—weird and beautiful, that is.For more information, contact Bill Nevins at piecefront@yahoo.com Or phone (505) 264 6979. [30]

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Lee Clapp
15 years ago

I heard the news on Saturday while listening to my local independent radio station. I already miss this man who I only met once, at a concert, so it really wasn't a true "meeting". I mentioned some of his old hangouts out in Montana that I am very familiar with, being from Missoula. He laughted and mentioned "the OX" and it's brains-n-eggs. I discovered Utah during a fund raiser at the Union Hall there in Missoula about 15 years ago, and was hooked. At first I enjoyed his stories of the life that is disappearing so rapidly, then I really started to listen and learn. In an age and at an age, mine, it is hard to see heroes. I can say unashamed that he is one of mine. Rest well sir! -Lee Clapp, Greensburg, PA

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Scoundrel
15 years ago

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9 years ago

My name is Fify, I viewed your profile today at (respectance) And i will like to have a communication with you,so that we can get to know each other better,Write me back through my email for more about me and my picture. (fify24me@yahoo.com).

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stuart
15 years ago

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stuart
15 years ago

There was a memorial service at the Nevada City, CA little league field on June 1st. For over two hours people shared thoughts and memories. It was a beautiful day.

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stuart
15 years ago

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stuart
15 years ago

The Rose Tattoo performed at the Oddfellows hall in Nevada City, CA on May 31. It started out to be a benefit concert. Sadly, it was a memorial show. There was an empty chair on stage for Utah. On the chair was a teddy bear that he took to all his shows, and a rubber chicken. His guitar and hat are next to the chair.

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Dotty LeMieux
15 years ago

I met Bruce in 1974 in Bolinas California, when Rosalie Sorrels lived there and kept an open-house for musicians, poets and others of her vast collection of friends, of which I was proud to count myself as one. Together we traveled to concerts from San Francisco to Tomales Bay, heard stories of hard times, good times and abiding friendship. As a fellow Wobbly, I found it easy to connect with Bruce and his tales of union organizing and more. Years later I came across him in Nevada City where he hustled my husband and I out of the music store we were browsing in to give us each a small button with the word "spy" in white letters on a black background. "Now we are all spies in the eyes of Homeland Security." he said, a characteristic gleam in his eyes. We immedately put on our spy buttons and promised to keep in touch. Of course we didn't. More fools us. Miss you Bruce!

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Trudy B. Brown
15 years ago

I burst into tears as I unsuspectingly read of Utah's death. I feel like I've lost an old friend. Impossible to count how many times I experienced him in the 30-something years since I discovered him and his unique (that word doesn't do him justice) brand of storytelling and singing. I saw him everywhere I lived, Bay Area-California, Denver, CO and Portland, ME. I am so grateful that he recorded for posterity his stories and songs. I shall miss him more than I can say. Trudy B. Brown Denver, CO

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Max McLaughlin
15 years ago

In about 1971, I spied U. Utah Phillips for the first time. It was at the Mariposa Folk Festival in Toronto, where I saw a great, swaggering son of a bitch in leather jeans and hat, with a forty ounce hip flask dangling out of his pocket. He told the best lies and sang the best songs I'd yet heard. It was some years later, after I'd gotten to know Bruce and his friends Rosalie and Bodie Wagner, when I saw him and Rosalie perform at Redpath Hall in Montreal. Rosalie'd been through a rough patch and got on stage drunk. He gave her the space and the dignity she needed to get out what she had to. He supported his friend in the most gracious way possible. Who'd have thought that great lout of a man had so much compassion and presence to pull that off. That was when I realized what a great human he was. We're sure gonna miss his presence down here on earth. I'm almost in a hurry to sit around the campfire in the sky and swap stories and songs with him. Max McLaughlin, Smithers BC

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John Hicks
15 years ago

Living Room Requiem Tonight we learned that the songwriter and populist hero Utah Phillips, who advised never call someone a hero who is still breathing, had died just this week at seventy three of heart failure. So we sang his Goodnight-Loving Trail as a half speed dirge savoring the words about an old cowboy reduced to being camp cook and the emotional melody—it was all I could do not to choke up on the line about the wind getting in there to blow out his light. We let it all go on bowed bass, french harp, which Utah’s cook played, fiddle, banjo, mandolin and guitar and all of us harmonizing the chorus like a band of lonesome coyotes singing to the ancient setting sun. And I wondered in how many living rooms are people singing Bruce Phillips songs tonight to mark his passing from us, and was wishing he could hear this outpouring of love and sadness he occasioned, like an alpenglow that hangs on after the sun has set. Later, Sam sang one of his hobo songs, I Remember Loving You, and Jim did Rock Salt and Nails, a song vibrant with the pain of love. Besides being an engrossing raconteur, Utah was a champion of the working man and the poor, the hobo, the broken down cowboy, a dyed in the wool anarchist and Wobbly, an embodiment of their slogan an injury to one is an injury to all, a proponent of political common sense who could quote Shakespeare and Wendell Berry and make one joke into a half hour monologue such as his epic tale of the first turtle drive from El Paso up to Denver for turtle soup; the river crossings were hard because the turtles would drift and at night they flipped them on their backs but they got so tired wiggling their little legs that it slowed the drive down. Utah Phillips made the great cattle drive that is modern life more bearable. I imagine he is herding turtles wherever good agnostics go when they die, as all across this country the people he stood up for are singing his songs with tears rimming their eyes and a coyote quaver in their voices.

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Don Brunetti
15 years ago

Utah Phillips entertained me, made me laugh, made me think, and made me question everything I thought I believed. Bruce Phillips was my friend, like an older brother at a time when I needed one. We met back in the Saratoga days in the early 70's, and spent some good times together. But the best story I know about him happened when my wife was visiting her friend, Carol, in Huntsville, Alabama. They were looking for something to do, and saw that Utah Phillips was playing in the area. Carol had never heard of Utah Phillips, but my wife convinced her to go. After the concert, my wife asked Carol what she thought of the concert. Carol said, "I feel like I've just been to church". What more is there to say? His passing has left a hole in the world, but he had the good sense to leave us with enough to fill the hole and carry on. Bravo Bruce Phillips! A life well lived.

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alison
15 years ago

from the very first moment I heard him, I knew he was a very special man and angel to share the truth.

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Gary Harrison
15 years ago

Several years ago, I was at a Christmas Faire in Auburn, Calif...I was amazed to see the such talent performing for the price of admisssion at the Faire. I did not know of Joe Crave, Golden Bough, and Utah Phillips at that point but I became thankfully acquainted. Utah told his "Moose Turd Pie" and other stories and I fell off the chair laughing! Later, in and around Grass Valley and Nevada City, I got to know Utah a bit and saw him perform many times, participated in a baseball music show with him and Steve Baker on KVMR, and had him on my own show a time or two. I was inspired by his peace activisim and his initiating of the homeless shelter in the area. He was alway gracious and I was never knew for sure that he remembered by name but I sure knew his. I learned along the way how close he was to John McCutcheon, the fine and talented singer/writer/instrumentalist that has become a friend and is a great supporter of community radio KVMR. I felt really privileged to be in the presence and know that both are great soul-brothers. They are both American heroes in my book. Gary Harrison

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Max McLaughlin
15 years ago

I remember a great swaggering son of a bitch in a leather hat and leather jeans with a 40 oz hip flask hanging out of a pocket. He told great lies, sang great songs with a big old Guild guitar and filled all the space with his persona. He greatly impressed this young hippie. A few years later after I'd got to know him and Rosalie and Bodie Wagner a bit, I watched him do a show with Rosalie at Redpath Hall in Montreal. Rosalie'd been going through a rough patch and did the show drunk. He gave her room to get out what she had to get out and supported her gracefully that night. 'Til then I had no idea that this great, bluff man had that level of compassion in him. My respect for the man grew greatly that night. I'm a railroader, and I work for one of those lying carpetbaggers that Bruce ranted so vehemently about. Thanks for voicing what working stiffs often can't God, we're gonna miss that man. Max McLaughlin, Smithers BC

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Al Hunter
15 years ago

"Time is an enormous, long river of important events and important ideas." I shall never forget your welcoming hand, Utah, your eyes and the gentleness of your way. Peaceful journey old man ---heading down that "enormous, long river", timeless, like you.

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Peter Lisk
15 years ago

Richard Rogers... I could never say it better so I won't even try. I saw Utah more times than I can count. He was always willing to talk. When I first met him I wrote him a check for some tapes he was selling and made it out to U. Utah Phillips, Golden Voice of the Great Southwest and that's how he endorsed it :) When I told him how I had ridden a freight train (called the Billy Goat) from Seattle to Minneapolis he told me why the train crew was so friendly to me. Utah would often talk about his buddy, Ammon Hennessy, and he made me PROUD to call myself an anarchist and a pacifist. Please consider making a donation in his honor to the Hospitality House of Western Nevada County that Utah was one of the founders of. Every dollar helps make Utah live on! Utah Phillips will NEVER rest in Peace...I know he will be busy organizing in Heaven! Peter in Loveland, CO

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Richard Rogers
15 years ago

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Richard Rogers
15 years ago

From the Kate Wolf Memorial Music Festival. Maybe 1999? Hugs to all... - RC Rogers, Eugene, OR

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Richard Rogers
15 years ago

I met Utah in 1996 in my capacity as one of the photograpers for the Kate Wolf Memorial Music Festival. He was a bear of a man and an American original. He lived more history than most of us have read about. Along with his music, I was impressed by his storytelling ability - and he had a million of them. I was intimidated by his enormous prescence for a few years, until I started bringing him little bits of news that illustrated the colossal stupidities that litter this culture and the planet. He honored me by sometimes mentioning these in his observations from the stage, but mostly he excelled at skewering the status quo in ways that will not soon be repeated. He was an activist before this term was created, and the closest thing to a fierce, living legend that I ever expect to meet. He was a folksinger, but a lot more. Though his music career may have been limited by health and age, he was a constant force at the Kate Wolf Festival, Hugs to his friend Rosalie Sorrels and all my friends at the Kate Wolf festivities. Utah now flies with the red-tailed hawks! - Richard Rogers, Eugene, OR

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Doug
15 years ago

I remember seeing Bruce for the first time, at the old, magical Fox Hollow Folk Festival, in, I think, 1969. He got me, hook, line, and sinker. What a character. His memory will live on in all our hearts. The world just grew a little dimmer. I shall surely miss his light. Rest in peace, Bruce.

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Rojaspak
15 years ago

Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGee, Huddy Ledbetter, and now Utal Phillips. Still standing: Pete Seeger, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Studs Terkel. Thank goodness for younger members of the tribe: Arlo Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Billy Bragg, and other righteous story-telling, truth-sanctifying musicians and soul-searchers left to carry on and remind us of our heritage. This land truly is your land. Take it easy, but take it.

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Graham
15 years ago

I have had the privilege and the pleasure of seeing and hearing this wonderful man only on you tube. This gift happened purely by chance only a few days ago. His wisdom, his artistry and humanity shine through in all he has done. How wonderful that he graced the world! Thank you, Sir.

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Denis Green
15 years ago

Grest music and great insights and perhaps most of all, great stories of real people stuggling in the real world. Thanks for the music and the musing. Denis Green

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Norman P.
15 years ago

We loved you Utah!

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Ben R
15 years ago

You're music will live on and you shall never be forgotten. You were a great musician and storyteller. You're amazing. Rest in peace Utah.

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Ben R
15 years ago

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Ben R
15 years ago

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Ben R
15 years ago

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Ben R
15 years ago

His performance at the Strawberry Music Festival Spring 2007, Camp Mather, Yosemite.

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Ben R
15 years ago

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