The Proud Message of Utah Phillips

[Judi Lynn]

The Proud Message of Utah Phillips

May 23, 2014

It is often forgotten that the path to the Great American Middle Class was forged in large part by labor activists and social reformers during the first six decades of the last century, a struggle that left behind a proud culture of music and stories that can inspire the present, as Richard L. Fricker recalls.

By Richard L. Fricker



May is graduation month, the start of the summer season, the time when youth pack off for travels in search of a broader worldly perspective. May is also workers’ month, a celebration of those who have struggled to raise the respect for those who labor and thus to tie together those slender threads of human decency in what we call civilization.

So, May is a good time to celebrate U. Utah Phillips, who lived from May 15, 1935, to May 23, 2008, a labor organizer, poet and folk singer who was known as the “Golden Voice of the Great Southwest.”

Phillips was born Bruce Duncan Phillips in Cleveland, Ohio, to Edwin D. Phillips and Frances Kathleen Coates, both active labor organizers. Their activities and his step-father’s management of vaudeville houses contributed to his becoming an icon of American folk music and the labor movement.

After an army tour in Korea during the mid-1950s, Phillips rode the rails and joined the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the Wobblies. During these travels, he adopted the name U. Utah Phillips in deference to singer T. Texas Tyler.

It is ironic that May 1, or May Day, is celebrated as the day of the worker in almost every corner of the industrialized world, except the United States, where it began in recognition of 1886 Chicago Haymarket Massacre during a battle for the eight-hour work day, to replace the then-standard 60 hours of work over six days a week.

More:
http://consortiumnews.com/2014/05/23/the-proud-message-of-utah-phillips/

[DreamGypsy]

1. Oh, we miss U. Utah Phillips...a national treasure..

...whose father got a job working for the WPA back in 1935 installing electric lights in Navajo outhouses, thereby become the first person ever to wire a head for a reservation.

To get an inkling of Utah's sense of humor, here's Railroading on the Great Divide, from the Strawberry Music Festival 2007 -

One of my favorites is Enola Gay, with a more serious message

[Warpy]

2. Some of his albums are still in print

so get 'em while you can. It's one of the few places you can hear some real labor history, both through the songs and the between song patter.

[Scootaloo]

3. Loved u. utah Phillips.

The bum on the rods is hunted down as an enemy of mankind
The other is driven around to his club, is feted, wined and dined

And they who curse the bum on the rods as the essence of all that's bad
Will greet the other with a willing smile and extend a hand so glad

The bum on the rods is a social flea who gets an occasional bite
The bum on the plush is a social leech, bloodsucking day and night

The bum on the rods is a load so light that his weight we scarcely feel
But it takes the labor of dozens of folks to furnish the other a meal

As long as we sanction the bum on the plush the other will always be there
But rid ourselves of the bum on the plush and the other will disappear

Then make an intelligent organized kick; get rid of the weights that crush
Don't worry about the bum on the rods; get rid of the bum on the plush