For Rosalie Sorrels- From The Pen Of Frank Jackman- To That Old Wobblie Troubadour- Utah Phillips – A Tribute –“Singing Through The Hard Times”

If I Could Be The Rain I Would Be Rosalie Sorrels-The Legendary Folksinger-Songwriter Has Her Last Go-Round At 83

By Music Critic Bart Webber

Back the day, back in the emerging folk minute of the 1960s that guys like Sam Lowell, Si Lannon, Josh Breslin, the late Peter Paul Markin and others were deeply immersed in all roads seemed to lead to Harvard Square with the big names, some small too which one time I made the subject of a series, or rather two series entitled respectively Not Bob Dylan and Not Joan Baez about those who for whatever reason did not make the show over the long haul, passing through the Club 47 Mecca and later the Café Nana and Club Blue, the Village down in NYC, North Beach out in San Francisco, and maybe Old Town in Chicago. Those are the places where names like Baez, Dylan, Paxton, Ochs, Collins and a whole crew of younger folksingers, some who made it like Tom Rush and Joni Mitchell and others like Eric Saint Jean and Minnie Murphy who didn’t, like  who all sat at the feet of guys like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger got their first taste of the fresh breeze of the folk minute, that expression courtesy of the late Markin, who was among the first around to sample the breeze.

(I should tell you here in parentheses so you will keep it to yourselves that the former three mentioned above never got over that folk minute since they will still tell a tale or two about the times, about how Dave Van Ronk came in all drunk one night at the Café Nana and still blew everybody away, about catching Paxton changing out of his Army uniform when he was stationed down at Fort Dix  right before a performance at the Gaslight, about walking down the street Cambridge with Tom Rush just after he put out No Regrets/Rockport Sunday, and about affairs with certain up and coming female folkies like the previously mentioned Minnie Murphy at the Club Nana when that was the spot of spots. Strictly aficionado stuff if you dare go anywhere within ten miles of the subject with any of them -I will take my chances here because this notice, this passing of legendary Rosalie Sorrels a decade after her dear friend Utah Phillips is important.)

Those urban locales were certainly the high white note spots but there was another important strand that hovered around Saratoga Springs in upstate New York, up around Skidmore and some of the other upstate colleges. That was Caffe Lena’s, run by the late Lena Spenser, a true folk legend and a folkie character in her own right, where some of those names played previously mentioned but also where some upstarts from the West got a chance to play the small crowds who gathered at that famed (and still existing) coffeehouse. Upstarts like the late Bruce “Utah” Phillips (although he could call several places home Utah was key to what he would sing about and rounded out his personality). And out of Idaho one Rosalie Sorrels who just joined her long-time friend Utah in that last go-round at the age of 83.

Yeah, came barreling like seven demons out there in the West, not the West Coast west that is a different proposition. The West I am talking about is where what the novelist Thomas Wolfe called the place where the states were square and you had better be as well if you didn’t want to starve or be found in some empty arroyo un-mourned and unloved. A tough life when the original pioneers drifted westward from Eastern nowhere looking for that pot of gold or at least some fresh air and a new start away from crowded cities and sweet breathe vices. A tough life worthy of song and homage. Tough going too for guys like Joe Hill who tried to organize the working people against the sweated robber barons of his day (they are still with us as we are all now very painfully and maybe more vicious than their in your face forbear). Struggles, fierce down at the bone struggles also worthy of song and homage. Tough too when your people landed in rugged beautiful two-hearted river Idaho, tried to make a go of it in Boise, maybe stopped short in Helena but you get the drift. A different place and a different type of subject matter for your themes than lost loves and longings.  

Rosalie Sorrels could write those songs as well, as well as anybody but she was as interested in the social struggles of her time (one of the links that united her with Utah) and gave no quarter when she turned the screw on a lyric. The last time I saw Rosalie perform in person was back in 2002 when she performed at the majestic Saunders Theater at Harvard University out in Cambridge America at what was billed as her last go-round, her hanging up her shoes from the dusty travel road. (That theater complex contained within the Memorial Hall dedicated to the memory of the gallants from the college who laid down their heads in that great civil war that sundered the country. The Harvards did themselves proud at collectively laying down their heads at seemingly every key battle that I am aware of when I look up at the names and places. A deep pride runs through me at those moments)

Rosalie Sorrels as one would expect on such an occasion was on fire that night except the then recent death of another folk legend, Dave Von Ronk, who was supposed to be on the bill (and who was replaced by David Bromberg who did a great job banging out the blues unto the heavens) cast a pall over the proceedings. I will always remember the crystal clarity and irony of her cover of her classic Old Devil Time that night -yeah, give me one more chance, one more breathe. But I will always think of If I Could Be The Rain and thoughts of washing herself down to the sea whenever I hear her name. RIP Rosalie Sorrels 

CD Review

Singing Through The Hard Times: A Tribute To Utah Phillips, various artists, 2009

…he came like wind, like rain. He came like an old time biblical prophet, all white-bearded, all flannel-shirted, all denim-panted, all work booted, came out of the heartland like so many prophets in the American land, spreading the common word, the word that has been around for a long time but was in need of updating and in need of some righteous gentle anger, to a new age, an age that knew not of old time struggles in this land, the old boss and worker struggles, the old downtrodden struggles, that dotted our common history. He spoke in a manly voice, a deep voice, no shame, although perhaps out of fashion in a world that sought quietude, sought quietude when action was the order of the day.

You could see him sing and tell his off-the-cuff stories in all the big little clubs, the quaint coffeehouses after they fell out of fashion, places like Club Passim, The Sparrow, Mickey’s, The Viking , The Joe Hill House out in the valleys of Utah, and above all second home base Café Lena out there in the foothills of the Adirondacks, out in Saratoga, where he and Rosalie Sorrels lit up the joint (the place, not what you think, come on now) for many years. You could see him too, and here is where he was kindred, out there in the public square fighting the good fight, fighting against the multiple angers of the day, fighting, struggling any place or time a brother was down on his luck, or a sister was in need. Some of the things he spoke of were, well, weird, weird to a chastened world, some too was old time Wobblie out of fashion stuff too when moral suasion fell flat against moloch in a rigged-up world but all who took the time to think could see a kindred in that wandering old- time troubadour.

And he sang songs in no particular order, no chronological or subject matter order anyway, of all kinds of things that he had observed, heard about, delved into, or just struck him as song or story worthy. Like? Well, what don’t we start with the struggle against the hard times a theme that dominated his life, personally, emotionally and politically. I have already spoken of that kindred spirit so I need not belabor that point here but it needed saying else half his life’s work, the part about humankind’s common miseries and what to do about them, would make no sense. He spoke too of, well, love or maybe better lost love since most of his songs speak of remembrance , of old time flames, of roads not taken, and of love lost to that wandering road that he ambled on, a tough road for love to blossom (although maybe not for speaking about lost love, maybe just right for that sentiment). He spoke too of the beauty of this country if we could just keep the greedy at bay, the rolling hills, the ocean of wheat and corn plains, the foam-flecked white-waved seas, the high breathe mountains and of protecting them against the greedy night that has descended on the American landscape, and was (is) ready to make the place a huge parking lot. He spoke of cities, cities entered into stealthily, hobo stealthily, coming off some ancient travel road, maybe Route 66, of skid row, of Sallys and soup lines, of second-hand always second hand, and of the vanishing flop houses that saved more than one wandering minstrel as the city closed itself off to the odd and misbegotten.

He spoke against the bosses, against the big bosses, the little bosses trying to be big bosses, and those who wanted to emulate them, or live in their reflected glory, and of those who didn’t. All above he spoke of the kindred hoboes, tramps, bums, the lost and forsaken, or the just wanderlust folk not hard-wired to settler society, and in need of the warrior wide open spaces to breathe, breathe a little. Spoke of their endless wander, bindle-bound, of the endless rails, of the endless jungles (slang for their, ah, residences, okay), of their olio-broth stews, camp fires, cheap Tokay and Thunderbird wines, their angers and flare-ups, their flame-reflected dream of their phantom girl Phoebe Snows, and long ago home memories, and, and, their lonesome side of the road deaths, unclaimed and unmourned.

…yes, he came like wind, like rain and hence this fitting tribute to the old curmudgeon Wobblie troubadour.