Utah played a benefit concert for striking air traffic controllers in 1981 at the Teamsters Hall. Rest in Peace Bother, Thanks, You have done good work,
So important this is around and accessible, so many stories thatll only survive through these old videos. Utah Phillips changed my life, long after he passed his music touched me. He's a powerful gentle man who loved people fiercely regardless color, creed, or gender. We can all keep his lessons alive through how we treat each other.
I first saw Utah Phillips when he played in a sort of coffee house hour at a residence hall at the University of Vermont in 1974. He recorded for Philo Records in Ferrisburgh and others such as Jim Ringer and Mary McCaslin played there, too. A fellow nicknamed Aardvark championed him and I am forever grateful that he did. In the next few years, Utah played at a slighter larger venue in Downtown Burlington, Finbars, but I treasure those first few get-togethers at UVM. He was a troubadour, but with something worthwhile to get across to those open to listening. The Golden Voice of the Great Southwest.
My roommate for a year in Saratoga Springs, NY, got me signed up to the IWW, taught us how to sabotage the man, a true hero to all of us. I feel so privileged to have lived with him, to have known him, and to have played music with him. Love you always Bruce!! Wildflowers forever!
He coerced me into going with him to Rounder Records to record "Bread and Roses" on the banjo, a tune Mary McCaslin later told me was awesome and beloved. Wouldn't have happened without Utah.UUtah Phillips molded my life. He was the dad I had wished somehow I had had. All of us at Wildflowers loved him!
We both worked so hard to get George McGovern elected in 1971. Phillips offered a concert to get McGovern elected. He called all of us to contribute and we all did. None of us had a clue that Nixon, in the midst of the Watergate scandal, would have a chance in hell. Nixon won in a landslide, only to resign several months later. How did we move forward after that??
I drove into Saratoga Springs on the way back to New England from the Mariposa festival in Toronto c.1978, stopped at Skidmore for a job interview because Utah and other Cafe Lena fans had me expecting an overall level of hipness that I came to question after meeting college administrators who didn't know what a yurt was, much less why anyone would want to live in one. Long road from there to the Blue Ridge and Floyd, VA., where you can buy a yurt from a local biz a half mile from the Floyd Country Store where I hang out and enjoy the music. Still need more folks like Utah.
Do you (or anyone on this thread) know of a piece about being introduced to a funny cigarette outside a party he wasn't hip enough to get into? A cinderella story with a smoke genie. We think it might be Utah Phillips. Mr. Brody saw this piece in Saratoga Springs on a local (probably PBS) station and has been trying to track down the performance or the piece or the artist since. The closing line, delivered by a genie emerging from a beer bottle was, he thinks, "Friend, I got a polyester suit you are gonna love." Probably mid- late-seventies.
Utah Phillips always reminds me of a radio 📻 station. "KFAT 94.5" way up top of the Gilroy Hotel. Gilroy CALIFORNIA. This station is were i heard Utah for the first time. R.I.P. "KFAT 94.5 Gilroy" R.I.P Utah You and your humer are missed 😢
I was living in northern Vermont in the early 1980's (around the time Bernie Sanders was elected to public office for the very first time, as mayor of Burlington). When I first heard of Utah Phillips, his renown was as the local eccentric character living in the railroad caboose car you could easily see from U.S. Highway 7 in North Ferrisburgh, Vermont. Then, over the airwaves of the University of Vermont's radio station WUVM-FM, I would hear his music and stories for the first time. In the following years, I collected the few vinyl recordings I could find of his, daydreaming to his songs and laughing at his stories. Flash forward to the next decade - the 1990's - where I caught him in a "coffee house" concert setting in Owings Mills, Maryland. Having traveled/lived in the west in the interim and being acquainted with many of the places he spoke or sang about, I had a nice little chit-chat with him following the show, the conversation at some point referencing western author Norman Maclean (writer of "A River Runs Through It," "Young Men and Fire," and a number of short stories) who, it turns out, had been a friend of Utah Phillips prior to his own demise. This was a fond concert memory, which included my purchasing a book of verse penned by Mr. Phillips. After these remote orbits, a perigee. A true, bigger-than-life personality who is greatly missed.
Hello from the UK! I've recently discovered Utah via a RU-vid adventure that started with Billy Bragg. Thank you so much for the upload, this is such a wonderfully warm and lighthearted gig. Beautiful.
-I met Utah while volunteering at Expo '74 in Spokane WA. We kept in touch from time to time 'til he passed. I miss him. Fortunately, we have recordings and videos to remind us what we need to know.
Happy birthday, Bruce! (He would have been 84 today, R.I.P. (May 15, 1935 - May 23, 2008) Great recording of his tales and songs... I suspect the unmiked audience was more enthusiastic than it sounds.
He reminded me of Los Angeles Preecher Gene Scott when he done this show and he still does in this show all of these years later! I met him personally 10 years later up on Mount Shasta, California. He was Outraged by Geo.H.W.Bushe's War on Saddat Who Same. Gulf War, I had been up on Mount Shasta so long I didn't know there was a war.
Miss Bruce, he never failed to make me and whoever else was within earshot laugh. Still does after 40 years. "Life is short, but it's wide." www.thelongmemory.com
He would always have a crazy play dough creation on the kitchen table when we awoke. Our life in Saratoga would have been pretty dull without Bruce! LOL!
Glad I met him when he was around, Denver. Him and Road Hog, and Sidedoor Pullman kid, a few I knew, all RIP. Not sure on Hog, but I'd imagine he's gone.
My wife just took my carrot cake to work, a restaurant. Most said that it was good to great. One couple, that both of us know well, said it tastes like moose turd pie, BUT IT IS GOOD. LMAO And that is why I am here today. :-)
14:09 whoa! i just recently was introduced to the notion of human biology aging as a result of oxidation and considering it a form of "rust." then, i just happened to watch utah phillips and he says that. also it was just recently labor day and he mentioned labor day, and also spokane was poignantly on my mind randomly which he said many times. when so many coincidences coincide i'd go inside my mind. 14:43 another coincidence since we're currently being victimized by rampant laissez-faire capitalistic greed. Utah, inflation is just CEO greed. 16:20 they rigged the markets better this time around. better computing technology. 24:36 i just learned this about turtles, too from a different youtube video. wtf 28:51 i was a conscientious objector 29:43 word 35:11 "do you know the word boomer?" - a serious question in 1980, lol!!! if he only knew the kind of usage the word has gotten recently. 44:20 me 51:57 another coinky: i have been researching the history and physics of radio recently, too.
![Utah Phillips - Ramblin' [Full Concert]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
