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Utah Phillips to perform in Ashland By Bill Varble U. Utah Phillips starts the morning these days with a cardiac rehab class at a hospital near his Nevada City, Calif., home in the Sierra Nevada foothills. He says it�s a great spot for hearing old timers� stories. "I get the dirt," he says. In an era of spinmeisters and entertainers positioned like brands, Phillips is the real folk deal: a man from the railroads and honky-tonks and union halls who became a legend. Rolling Stone magazine called him a blend of Mark Twain and Will Rogers with touches of PT Barnum and Huck Finn. But after a lifetime on the road, as tramp, working stiff and performer, Phillips has slowed to one concert a month. What: concert by singer-songwriter Utah Phillips When: 8 p.m. Friday Where: Unitarian Center, Fourth and C streets, Ashland Tickets: $15 at CD or Not CD in Ashland $17 at the door. For more information: call 482-4154 or go to www.stclairevents.com This month that show is in the Rogue Valley when Phillips performs Friday in Ashland. Phillips, 65, developed a new focus on taking care of himself after a diagnosis of congestive heart failure five years ago. "Stress is the hardest part," he says in a telephone interview. "If I could deal with stress I�d be fat city." He keeps busy with a radio show he debuted three years ago called "Loafer�s Glory, the Hobo Jungle of the Mind," on KPFA-FM in Berkeley, Calif. The show is broadcast via satellite with songs and talk on topics close to Phillips� heart, like labor history. He�s known for his stories as much as his music. "You gotta be curious," he says. "I figure I�m being paid to go to school. People in a town will say, �You ought to go and talk to so and so,� and I do." Phillips was born in Ohio in 1935. His mother worked for the CIO, and his father was a communist, although his stepfather was a small-town businessman. He left home at 15, riding freights, bumming his way West. "I worked with older men, mostly alcoholics, who could shovel gravel in national parks," he says. One of his jobs required him to scare the bears away from the garbage at a resort. He listened to the old timers� stories, and he listened on radio to singers like Jimmie Rogers and T. Texas Tyler. He sang in hobo camps and on picket lines and in bars for dinner, joined the army, served in Korea. "I tramped just because I was upset," he says. "It never occurred to me that people made a living singing." Phillips, whose given name is Bruce, says he was given the "U. Utah" moniker by a co-worker who complained he was always talking about T. Texas Tyler. He ran for the Senate in Utah in 1968 on the Peace and Freedom ticket, lost his state job and, he believes, was blacklisted. He left in a tired Volkswagen bus he called Hitler�s Revenge and, with the help of singer Rosalie Sorrels, found the folk music community on the East Coast. "It was a family that knew each other and put music in the hands of the people," he says. "I spent the next 30 years working without a boss." An occasional stop on his itinerary was Ashland, where he sometimes performed with Nancy Spencer. "The greatest lady saw player I ever saw," he says. He still plays the big Guild F50 guitar made for him in 1967. "It�s something I can cower behind," he says, "and use to fend off flying objects." He has a problem with his right hand and had to abandon finger-picking. Phillips recorded many albums on small labels over the years, and his songs were recorded by Joan Baez, Emmylou Harris, John Denver, Flatt and Scruggs and others. Among his recent projects: touring and recording with singer Ani DiFranco, who introduced his anarchist beliefs to a new generation. "She�s the most powerful intellect I�ve ever encountered," he says. "I wanted to show young people they have a history that�s been stolen. Schools teach kids to be good, obedient wage slaves; I want to give �em some tools to control the ends of their labor." When Woody Guthrie was dying, Bob Dylan came along with Tom Paxton and other youngsters for a passing of the torch, Phillips says. But now the elders are dead, and he fears the well of tradition is in jeopardy. Singer-songwriters like John Gorka or Dar Williams or Christine Wheeler sing their own, highly personal songs. Even Guthrie, said to have written hundreds of songs, inherited a traditional repertoire, Phillips says. "Old songs, mountain songs, railroad songs. It�s good singer- songwriters are using music as a mean of self expression. But I�d like to see them pay more attention to the music of their elders. Give us songs we can all sing together about the lives we shared together." He admits to performance anxiety that�s never gone away. He once described himself as a violent man who became a pacifist. Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.