In Honor Of The King Of The Folk-Singing Hard-Living Hobos The Late Utah Phillips -From The Archives- For The Late Rosalie Sorrels-An Old Wobblie Goes Home- Farewell Working Class Warrior Utah Phillips

Click On Title To Link To Utah Phillips Web page.

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 

Tribune Commentary

I have just received word that the legendary folksinger/ union organizer and old-fashioned Wobblie Utah Phillips has died out in California. Apparently he died on Saturday May 24th. Ironically, given some of my comments below regarding a review of his last CD, Starlight on the Rails, that date is also Bob Dylan's birthday. I have reposted commentaries that I have done over the last couple of years on Utah. Adieu, old class warrior


Commentary

I have just received this communication about Utah Phillips from a local folksong society newsletter. I would add that I saw Utah playing at a club in Cambridge last spring (2007) and he looked a little off then. I have reposted below a CD Review of his anthology Starlight On The Trail from 2006 for those unfamiliar with his music and his politics. We differ on the politics but please help this old class warrior. I have added a link to his website here.

I have also added a link to the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, Wobblies) website.

Utah Phillips needs help

Unions Passing Resolutions to Honor, Assist Folksinger/Storyteller Bruce "Utah" Phillips

The great folksinger and storyteller Utah Phillips has had to retire from performing due to chronic and serious heart problems that have plagued him for years. In recognition of his great love for and work on behalf of the union movement and working people of the United States, several union locals have passed resolutions honoring Phillips and attaching donations for his "retirement fund." Unable to travel or stand the rigors of performing a two-hour concert, Phillips has seen his main source of income vanish just when his medical problems are demanding more money for treatment and medications.

In response, Local 1180 of the Communications Workers of America (NYC), and both the Detroit and the James Connolly (Upstate New York) Branches of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) have recently passed the following resolution:

Bruce "Utah" Phillips is a truly unique American treasure. Not just a great folksong writer and interpreter, not just a great storyteller, Utah has preserved and presented the history of our nation's working people and union movement for audiences throughout the world. His recorded work keeps these songs and stories alive. He has spoken up against the injustices of boss-dominated capitalism and worked for peace and justice for more than 40 years.

Now Utah finds himself unable to continue performing due to severe heart problems. We wish to honor and recognize his great talent, spirit and love for the working people and the union movement of the United States. Therefore, we move to pass this resolution in gratitude for all he has done and will continue to do in his
work and life. We also wish to contribute to Utah Phillips in appreciation and in solidarity as he and his wife, Joanna Robinson, deal with his health and the loss of his ability to work.

This news is being released with the hope that other unions, anti-war and labor-affiliated organizations will respond in kind by passing this or similar resolutions in appreciation for all Utah Phillips has done for the cause of unions and peace.

Another way that organizations and individuals can help is by purchasing some or all of Utah's vast catalog of songs and stories. All of his CDs and more information are available at his website, www.utahphillips.org, and Utah has begun posting pod casts up there that you can download and listen to! You can also order his CDs online (credit card sales) through www.cdbaby.com but be advised that prices are cheaper and more of that money will go into Utah's hands if you order directly from him. More info on his website.

Here's the address for CD orders and to send a donation: U. Utah Phillips, No Guff Records, P.O. Box 1235, Nevada City, CA 95959, (530) 265-2476

Utah has given so much of himself to the labor and peace movements. It is great news that some unions and many have chosen to give something back to him, to allow him and his wife, Joanna Robinson, to rest easy, work on his long-term health, and not have to worry about where money will come for the medicine and bills he has to pay.

In Solidarity, George Mann


AN UNREPENTANT WOBBLIE AT WORK

CD REVIEW

STARLIGHT ON THE RAILS- UTAH PHILLIPS, 2005

Although this space is mainly dedicated to reviewing political books and commenting on past and current political issues as a way to orient today’s alienated radical youth on the lessons of the past literary output is hardly the only form of political creation. Occasionally in the history of the American and international left musicians, artists and playwrights have given voice or provided visual reminders to the face of political struggle. With that thought in mind, every once in a while I will use this space to review those kinds of political expression.

My musical tastes were formed, as were many of those of the generation of 1968, by ‘Rock and Roll’ music exemplified by the Rolling Stones and Beatles and by the blues revival, both Delta and Chicago style. However, those forms as much as they gave pleasure were only marginally political at best. In short, these were entertainers performing material that spoke to us. In the most general sense that is all one should expect of a performer. Thus, for the most part that music need not be reviewed here. Those who thought that a new musical sensibility laid the foundations for a cultural or political revolution have long ago been proven wrong.

That said, in the early 1960’s there nevertheless was another form of musical sensibility that was directly tied to radical political expression- the folk revival. This entailed a search for roots and relevancy in musical expression. While not all forms of folk music lent themselves to radical politics it is hard to see the 1960’s cultural rebellion without giving a nod to such figures as Dave Van Ronk, the early Bob Dylan, Utah Phillips, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and others. Whatever entertainment value these performers provided they also spoke to and prodded our political development. They did have a message and an agenda and we responded as such. That these musicians’ respective agendas proved inadequate and/or short-lived does not negate their affect on the times.

My leftist political consciousness, painfully fought for in my youth coincided with an expansion of my musical tastes under the influence of the great blues and folk revivals of the 1960’s. Unfortunately my exposure to the blues greats was mainly on records as many of them had been forgotten, retired or were dead. Not so with the folk revival which was created mainly by those who were close contemporaries. Alas, they too are now mainly forgotten, retired or dead. It therefore is with special pleasure that I review Utah Phillips Songbook while he is very much alive.

Many of the folksingers of the 1960’s attempted to use their music to become troubadours for social change. The most famous example, the early Bob Dylan, can be fairly described as the voice of his generation at that time. However, he fairly quickly moved on to other concepts of himself and his music. Bob Dylan’s work became more informed by the influences of Rimbaud and Verlaine and the French Symbolists of the late 1800’s and thus moved away to a more urban, sophisticated vision. From the start and consistently throughout his long career Utah has acted as a medium giving voice to the troubles of ordinary people and the simpler ethos of a more rural, Western-oriented gone by day in the American experience. He evokes in song the spirit of the people Walt Whitman paid homage to in poetic form and John Dos Passos and John Steinbeck gave in prose. He sits comfortably in very fast company. Therefore, Utah Phillips can justly claim the title of a people’s troubadour.

A word about politics. Generally, one rates music without reference to politics. However, Utah has introduced the political element by the way he structured the Songbook. Each song is introduced by him as to its significance heavily weighted to his political experiences, observations and vision. Thus, political comment is fairly in play here. Utah is a long time anarchist and unrepentant supporter of the Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World, hereafter IWW). Every militant cherishes the memory of the class battles led by the IWW like the famous Lawrence strike of 1912 and honors the heroes of those battles like Big Bill Haywood and Vincent St. John and the militants they recruited to the cause of the working class in the first part of the 20th century. They paved the way for the later successful organization drives of the 1930’s.

Nevertheless, while Utah and I would both most definitely agree that some old-fashioned class struggle by working people in today’s one-sided class war would be a very good thing we as definitely differ on the way to insure a permanent victory for working people in order to create a decent society. In short, Utah’s prescriptions of good moral character, increased self-knowledge and the creation of small intentional communities are not enough. Under modern conditions it is necessary to take and safeguard political power against those who would quite consciously deny that victory. History has been cruel in some of the bitter lessons working people have had to endure for not dealing with the question of taking state power to protect their interests. But, enough said. I am more than willing to forgive the old curmudgeon his anarchist sins if he’ll sing ‘I Remember Loving You’ the next time he tours the Boston area.

In Honor Of The King Of The Folk-Singing Hard-Living Hobos The Late Utah Phillips -From The Archives- *For The Late Rosalie Sorrels- A Working Class Anthem For Labor Day- " Solidarity Forever"

For The Late Rosalie Sorrels- A Working Class Anthem For Labor Day- " Solidarity Forever"

Solidarity forever!
For the union makes us strong

When the union's inspiration
through the workers' blood shall run,
There can be no power greater
anywhere beneath the sun.
Yet what force on earth is weaker
than the feeble strength of one?
But the union makes us strong.


They have taken untold millions
that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle
not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power;
gain our freedom when we learn
That the Union makes us strong.


In our hands is placed a power
greater than their hoarded gold;
Greater than the might of armies,
magnified a thousand-fold.
We can bring to birth a new world
from the ashes of the old
For the Union makes us strong.


This labor anthem was written in 1915 by IWW songwriter and union organizer Ralph Chaplin using the music of Julia Ward Howe's Battle Hymn of the Republic. These song lyrics are those sung by Joe Glazer, Educational Director of the United Rubber Workers, from the recording Songs of Work and Freedom, (Washington Records WR460)

In Honor Of The King Of The Folk-Singing Hard-Living Hobos The Late Utah Phillips -From The Archives- *Tell Me Utah Phillips- Have You Seen Starlight On The Rails?

Click On Title To Link To Utah Phillips Webpage.

Commentary

I have been on a something of a Utah Phillips/Rosalie Sorrels musical tear lately but I want to pay separate attention to one song, Phillips’ “Starlight On The Rails", that hits home on some many levels- the memories of bumming around the country in my youth, riding and living free (or trying to), my on and off love affair with trains as a mode of transportation, and, of course the political struggle to fix what ails this country. And as Utah acknowledges below in introducing the song (from the Utah Phillips Songbook version) we get a little Thomas Wolfe as a literary bonus. Utah and I, in the end, had very different appreciations of what it takes to do this political fixin' mentioned above but we can agree on the sentiments expressed in his commentary and song.

Utah, aside from his love of trains as a form of personal transportation when he was “on the bum”, also was a vocal advocate for their use as mass transportation. He originally argued this proposition at a time when the railroads were losing passengers in droves to the great automobile explosion. Utah wrote a song for one of his sons “Daddy, What’s A Train?” on the demise of this more people-friendly form of getting around. Since then there has been, due to the mercurial economics of oil and some conscious social and environmental policy planning, something of a resurgence of the train as a means of transportation.

Nevertheless the saga of the train in this writer’s imagination remains more of a boyhood memory than an actuality today. I can still see those historic old names: Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, B&O, and Boston & Maine. I can still hear the whistle blow as the train comes into the station. The conductor’s yell of “All, aboard” or the station’s name. Those rattling sounds of wheels hitting the metal of the rails. But, mainly, I think of the slower times, the time to look at the scenery as the train ambles along and to understand the how, if not the why, of the contours of the way America sprouted up as it out moved in all directions from its Eastern shores.

I noted in a review of a PBS American Experience documentary, “Riding The Rails” (see archives, “Starlight On The Rails, Indeed”, November 4, 2008) growing up in the 1950’s I had a somewhat tenuous connection with trains. My grandparents lived close to a commuter rail that before my teenage years went out of service, due to the decline of ridership as the goal of two (or three) car garages gripped the American imagination in an age when gas was cheap and plentiful. In my teens though, many a time I walked those then abandoned tracks to take the short route to the center of town. I can still picture that scene now trying to hit my stride on each tie. As an adult I have frequently ridden the rails, including a cross-country trip that actually converted me to the virtues of air travel on longer trips.

Of course, my ‘adventures’ riding the rails is quite different than that the one looked at in the American Experience documentary about a very, very common way for the youth of America to travel in the Depression-ridden 1930’s, the youth of my parents’ generation. My own experiences were usually merely as a paying passenger, although when down on my luck I rolled onto a couple of moving trains. An experience not for the faint-hearted, for sure. But this was mainly slumming. Their experiences were anything but. The only common thread between them and me was the desire expressed by many interviewees to not be HERE but to be THERE. I spent a whole youth running to THERE. But enough of this- let Utah tell his story about the realities, not the romance of the rails.

Guest Commentary

Starlight On The Rails- Utah Phillips

This comes from reading Thomas Wolfe. He had a very deep understanding of the music in language. Every now and then he wrote something that stuck in my ear and would practically demand to be made into a song.

I think that if you talk to railroad bums, or any kind of bum, you'll see that what affects them the most is homelessness, not necessarily rootlessness. Traveling is all right if you have a place to go from and a place to go to. It's when you don't have any place that it becomes more difficult. There's nothing you can count on in the world, except yourself. And if you're an old blown bum, you can't even do that very well. I guess this is a home song as much as anything else.

We walked along a road in Cumberland and stooped, because the sky hung down so low; and when we ran away from London, we went by little rivers in a land just big enough. And nowhere that we went was far: the earth and the sky were close and near. And the old hunger returned - the terrible and obscure hunger that haunts and hurts Americans, and makes us exiles at home and strangers wherever we go.

Oh, I will go up and down the country and back and forth across the country. I will go out West where the states are square. I will go to Boise and Helena, Albuquerque and the two Dakotas and all the unknown places. Say brother, have you heard the roar of the fast express? Have you seen starlight on the rails?

STARLIGHT ON THE RAILS
(Bruce Phillips)

I can hear the whistle blowing
High and lonesome as can be
Outside the rain is softly falling
Tonight its falling just for me

Looking back along the road I've traveled
The miles can tell a million tales
Each year is like some rolling freight train
And cold as starlight on the rails

I think about a wife and family
My home and all the things it means
The black smoke trailing out behind me
Is like a string of broken dreams

A man who lives out on the highway
Is like a clock that can't tell time
A man who spends his life just rambling
Is like a song without a rhyme


Daddy What's A Train

Most everybody who knows me knows that I'm a train nut. In Dayton, Ohio, when I was 12 years old during the Second World War, there was a railroad that went close by Greenmont Village. A bunch of the kids and I built a fort out of old railroad ties, half dug in the ground and half above the ground. We let a bum sleep in there one night - I think he was the first railroad bum I remember meeting - came back the next day and it had been burned down. He'd evidently set it on fire or started it accidentally.

Playing around in that fort we'd see the big steam engines run by. The engineers would wave, and the parlor shack back in the crummy - that's the brakeman who stays in the caboose - would wave, too. Put your ear down on the rail and you could hear the trains coming. We'd play games on the ties and swing ourselves on the rails. Also we'd pick up a lot of coal to take home. I understand that during the Depression a lot of families kept their homes warm by going out along the right of way and picking up coal that had fallen out of the coal tenders.
This song is written for my little boy Duncan. His grandfather, Raymond P. Jensen, was a railroad man for over 40 years on the Union Pacific, working as an inspector. There's a lot of railroading in Duncan's family, but he hasn't ridden trains very much.



(sung to chorus tune)
When I was just a boy living by the track
Us kids'd gather up the coal in a great big gunny sack,
And then we'd hear the warning sound as the train pulled into view
And the engineer would smile and wave as she went rolling through;

(spoken)
She blew so loud and clear
That we covered up our ears
And counted cars as high as we could go.
I can almost hear the steam
And the big old drivers scream
With a sound my little boy will never know.

I guess the times have changed and kids are different now;
Some don't even seem to know that milk comes from a cow.
My little boy can tell the names of all the baseball stars
And I remember how we memorized the names on railroad cars -


The Wabash and TP
Lackawanna and IC
Nickel Plate and the good old Santa Fe;
Names out of the past
And I know they're fading fast
Every time I hear my little boy say.

Well, we climbed into the car and drove down into town
Right up to the depot house but no one was around.
We searched the yard together for something I could show
But I knew there hadn't been a train for a dozen years or so.

All the things I did
When I was just a kid-
How far away the memories appear,
And it's plain enough to see
They mean a lot to me
'Cause my ambition was to be an engineer.

Copyright ©1973, 2000 Bruce Phillips

*The Last Go Round- The Music Of Rosalie Sorrels

Happy Birthday To You-

By Lester Lannon

I am devoted to a local folk station WUMB which is run out of the campus of U/Mass-Boston over near Boston Harbor. At one time this station was an independent one based in Cambridge but went under when their significant demographic base deserted or just passed on once the remnant of the folk minute really did sink below the horizon.

So much for radio folk history except to say that the DJs on many of the programs go out of their ways to commemorate or celebrate the birthdays of many folk, rock, blues and related genre artists. So many and so often that I have had a hard time keeping up with noting those occurrences in this space which after all is dedicated to such happening along the historical continuum.

To “solve” this problem I have decided to send birthday to that grouping of musicians on an arbitrary basis as I come across their names in other contents or as someone here has written about them and we have them in the archives. This may not be the best way to acknowledge them, but it does do so in a respectful manner.   

Click on title to link to tribute to Rosalie Sorrels "Rock Me To Sleep" by here now departed long time friend and fellow singer/storyteller/songwriter Utah Phillips. Turnabout is fair play, right?

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

March Is Women's History Month

The Rigors Of The Road Take Their Toll

My Last Go Round-Rosalie Sorrels And Friends, Rosalie Sorrels and various artists, Red House Records, 2004

A couple of years ago in a review of the late Utah Phillips’ “Starlight On The Rails” Songbook I noted that, in my youth in the early 1960’s when I came of musical age, I had to hear the old blues singers that I was crazy for second-hand because most of them were retired, dead or no longer performing for health or some other reason. I drew the contrast to my then expanding interest in the burgeoning folk revival where one could see one’s near contemporaries perform live at a local coffeehouse, school auditorium or concert hall. Sadly, since I made that remark more of the folk icons of my youth have passed away, including old Utah, have long ago given due to ill health or as is the case of the artist under review, Rosalie Sorrels, decided to retire. They do so reluctantly in most cases, and we are reluctant to see them go, but the rigors of the back road in folk music are just as tough as those of the political road.

This review of the farewell concert at Harvard University in the Spring of 2002 by Rosalie and her long time friends (except Utah Phillips, a friend of over fifty years, who I believe was in ill-health at the time and Dave Van Ronk who had died a few weeks before he was to appear at the concert) is unusual from most reviews I do in that I was in the audience that night. I dearly missed not seeing old Dave but the line-up for the show mostly made up for that deeply-felt lost.

And what were we treated to? Well, Dave Bromberg ‘subbed’ for Dave Van Ronk for one thing. Rosalie did, appropriately, “My Last Go Round” and “Traveling Lady” and finished up with “Old Devil Time” as well as a couple of Utah classics, “The Telling Takes Me Home” and “I Think Of You”. Jean Ritchie did a nice version of “Pretty Saro”. Peggy Seeger did “Love Will Linger On” nicely. And, course, no Rosalie Sorrels (or Utah Phillips) concert would be complete without some serious storytelling in between songs, a somewhat lost art form that she and Utah did more than their share to keep alive. Nice.


Pete Seeger Lyrics

Old Devil Time Lyrics

Old devil time, I'm goin' to fool you now!
Old devil time, you'd like to bring me down!
When I'm feeling low, my lovers gather 'round
And help me rise to fight you one more time!

Old devil fear, you with your icy hands,
Old devil fear, you'd like to freeze me cold!
When I'm sore afraid, my lovers gather 'round
And help me rise to fight you one more time!

Old devil pain, you often pinned me down,
You thought I'd cry, and beg you for the end
But at that very time, my lovers gather 'round
And help me rise to fight you one more time!

Old devil hate, I knew you long ago,
Then I found out the poison in your breath.
Now when we hear your lies, my lovers gather 'round
And help me rise to fight you one more time!

No storm nor fire can ever beat us down,
No wind that blows but carries us further on.
And you who fear, oh lovers, gather 'round
And we can rise and sing it one more time!

If I Could Be The Rain-"Utah Phillips"

Everybody I know sings this song their own way, and they arrive at their own understanding of it. Guy Carawan does it as a sing along. I guess he thinks it must have some kind of universal appeal. To me, it's a very personal song. It's about events in my life that have to do with being in love. I very seldom sing it myself for those reasons.


If I could be the rain, I'd wash down to the sea;
If I could be the wind, there'd be no more of me;
If I could be the sunlight, and all the days were mine,
I would find some special place to shine.

But all the rain I'll ever be is locked up in my eyes,
When I hear the wind it only whispers sad goodbyes.
If I could hide the way I feel I'd never sing again;
Sometimes I wish that I could be the rain.

If I could be the rain, I'd wash down to the sea;
If I could be the wind, there'd be no more of me;
If I could hide the way I feel I'd never sing again;
Sometimes I wish that I could be the rain.

Copyright ©1973, 2000 Bruce Phillips


THE TELLING TAKES ME HOME
(Bruce Phillips)

Let me sing to you all those songs I know
Of the wild, windy places locked in timeless snow,
And the wide, crimson deserts where the muddy rivers flow.
It's sad, but the telling takes me home.

Come along with me to some places that I've been
Where people all look back and they still remember when,
And the quicksilver legends, like sunlight, turn and bend
It's sad, but the telling takes me home.

Walk along some wagon road, down the iron rail,
Past the rusty Cadillacs that mark the boom town trail,
Where dreamers never win and doers never fail,
It's sad, but the telling takes me home.

I'll sing of my amigos, come from down below,
Whisper in their loving tongue the songs of Mexico.
They work their stolen Eden, lost so long ago.
It's sad, but the telling takes me home.

I'll tell you all some lies, just made up for fun,
And the loudest, meanest brag, it can beat the fastest gun.
I'll show you all some graves that tell where the West was won.
It's sad, but the telling takes me home.

And I'll sing about an emptiness the East has never known,
Where coyotes don't pay taxes and a man can live alone,
And you've got to walk forever just to find a telephone.
It's sad, but the telling takes me home.

Let me sing to you all those songs I know
Of the wild, windy places locked in timeless snow,
And the wide, crimson deserts where the muddy rivers flow.
It's sad, but the telling takes me home.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
STARLIGHT ON THE RAILS
(Bruce Phillips)

I can hear the whistle blowing
High and lonesome as can be
Outside the rain is softly falling
Tonight its falling just for me

Looking back along the road I've traveled
The miles can tell a million tales
Each year is like some rolling freight train
And cold as starlight on the rails

I think about a wife and family
My home and all the things it means
The black smoke trailing out behind me
Is like a string of broken dreams

A man who lives out on the highway
Is like a clock that can't tell time
A man who spends his life just rambling
Is like a song without a rhyme

In Honor Of The King Of The Folk-Singing Hard-Living Hobos The Late Utah Phillips -From The Archives- *The Dreams Of Childhood… And Adulthood - The Music Of Priscilla Herdman

Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Christie Moore performing "John O' Dreams".

CD Review

Moondreamer, Priscilla Herdman, Redwing Music, 1998

Sometimes you find out about a singer straight up, through a record, on the radio, a concert, or…”YouTube”. Sometimes the route is more circuitous. That is the case here with singer/songwriter Priscilla Herdman. I first hear her doing a duet with the old Wobblie, singer/storyteller/ folk historian Utah Phillips on his song “I Remember Loving You”. Of course, for this old folk devotee anyone that has Phillips’ imprimatur on him or her bears further investigation. That is part of the reason that I know about the work of Kate Wolf, for one.

So here we are. And what we have with this presentation are lullabies and other “soft” songs for adults and …children. Well, that is okay, too. Sometimes this is just the kind of “dreamy” music that fits those moments just before slumber time, for adults and kids alike. The best to do just that are “John O’ Dreams”, “Moon And Me”, and “Stars On The Water”.

John O'Dreams Lyrics

[G]When midnight comes and people[C] homeward [G]tread,
Seek out your blanket and your[C] feathered[G] bed,
Home comes the[D] rover,his journey's[G] over
Yield up the night time to old[C] John O[G]'Dreams
Yield up the night time to old[C] John O'[G]Dreams
[2]
Across the hill the sun has gone astray
Tomorrows cares are many dreams away
The stars are flying,your candle's dying
Yield up the night time to oldJohn O'Dreams
Yield up the night time to old John O'Dreams
[3]
Both man and master in the night are one
All things are equal when the day is done
The prince and the ploughman,the slave the free man
All find their comfort in old John O'Dreams
All find their comfort in old John O'Dreams
[4]
When sleep it comes the dreams come running clear
The hawks of morning cannot reach you here
Sleep is a river,flow on for ever
And for your boatman choose old John O'Dreams
Yes for your boatman choose old John O'Dreams

In Honor Of The King Of The Folk-Singing Hard-Living Hobos The Late Utah Phillips -From The Archives- *From The Archives-Old Wobblie Folksinger/Storyteller Utah Phillips Needs Your Help

Click On Title To Link To Utah Phillips Web page.

Commentary

I have just received this communication about Utah Phillips from a local folksong society newsletter. I would add that I saw Utah playing at a club in Cambridge last spring (2007) and he looked a little off then. I have reposted below a CD Review of his anthology Starlight On The Trail from 2006 for those unfamiliar with his music and his politics. We differ on the politics but please help this old class warrior. I have added a link to his website here.

I have also added a link to the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, Wobblies) website.

Utah Phillips needs help

Unions Passing Resolutions to Honor, Assist Folksinger/Storyteller Bruce "Utah" Phillips

The great folksinger and storyteller Utah Phillips has had to retire from performing due to chronic and serious heart problems that have plagued him for years. In recognition of his great love for and work on behalf of the union movement and working people of the United States, several union locals have passed resolutions honoring Phillips and attaching donations for his "retirement fund." Unable to travel or stand the rigors of performing a two-hour concert, Phillips has seen his main source of income vanish just when his medical problems are demanding more money for treatment and medications.

In response, Local 1180 of the Communications Workers of America (NYC), and both the Detroit and the James Connolly (Upstate New York) Branches of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) have recently passed the following resolution:

Bruce "Utah" Phillips is a truly unique American treasure. Not just a great folksong writer and interpreter, not just a great storyteller, Utah has preserved and presented the history of our nation's working people and union movement for audiences throughout the world. His recorded work keeps these songs and stories alive. He has spoken up against the injustices of boss-dominated capitalism and worked for peace and justice for more than 40 years.

Now Utah finds himself unable to continue performing due to severe heart problems. We wish to honor and recognize his great talent, spirit and love for the working people and the union movement of the United States. Therefore, we move to pass this resolution in gratitude for all he has done and will continue to do in his
work and life. We also wish to contribute to Utah Phillips in appreciation and in solidarity as he and his wife, Joanna Robinson, deal with his health and the loss of his ability to work.

This news is being released with the hope that other unions, anti-war and labor-affiliated organizations will respond in kind by passing this or similar resolutions in appreciation for all Utah Phillips has done for the cause of unions and peace.

Another way that organizations and individuals can help is by purchasing some or all of Utah's vast catalog of songs and stories. All of his CDs and more information are available at his website, www.utahphillips.org, and Utah has begun posting pod casts up there that you can download and listen to! You can also order his CDs online (credit card sales) through www.cdbaby.com but be advised that prices are cheaper and more of that money will go into Utah's hands if you order directly from him. More info on his website.

Here's the address for CD orders and to send a donation: U. Utah Phillips, No Guff Records, P.O. Box 1235, Nevada City, CA 95959, (530) 265-2476

Utah has given so much of himself to the labor and peace movements. It is great news that some unions and many have chosen to give something back to him, to allow him and his wife, Joanna Robinson, to rest easy, work on his long-term health, and not have to worry about where money will come for the medicine and bills he has to pay.

In Solidarity, George Mann


AN UNREPENTANT WOBBLIE AT WORK

CD REVIEW

STARLIGHT ON THE RAILS- UTAH PHILLIPS, 2005

Although this space is mainly dedicated to reviewing political books and commenting on past and current political issues as a way to orient today’s alienated radical youth on the lessons of the past literary output is hardly the only form of political creation. Occasionally in the history of the American and international left musicians, artists and playwrights have given voice or provided visual reminders to the face of political struggle. With that thought in mind, every once in a while I will use this space to review those kinds of political expression.

My musical tastes were formed, as were many of those of the generation of 1968, by ‘Rock and Roll’ music exemplified by the Rolling Stones and Beatles and by the blues revival, both Delta and Chicago style. However, those forms as much as they gave pleasure were only marginally political at best. In short, these were entertainers performing material that spoke to us. In the most general sense that is all one should expect of a performer. Thus, for the most part that music need not be reviewed here. Those who thought that a new musical sensibility laid the foundations for a cultural or political revolution have long ago been proven wrong.

That said, in the early 1960’s there nevertheless was another form of musical sensibility that was directly tied to radical political expression- the folk revival. This entailed a search for roots and relevancy in musical expression. While not all forms of folk music lent themselves to radical politics it is hard to see the 1960’s cultural rebellion without giving a nod to such figures as Dave Van Ronk, the early Bob Dylan, Utah Phillips, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and others. Whatever entertainment value these performers provided they also spoke to and prodded our political development. They did have a message and an agenda and we responded as such. That these musicians’ respective agendas proved inadequate and/or short-lived does not negate their affect on the times.

My leftist political consciousness, painfully fought for in my youth coincided with an expansion of my musical tastes under the influence of the great blues and folk revivals of the 1960’s. Unfortunately my exposure to the blues greats was mainly on records as many of them had been forgotten, retired or were dead. Not so with the folk revival which was created mainly by those who were close contemporaries. Alas, they too are now mainly forgotten, retired or dead. It therefore is with special pleasure that I review Utah Phillips Songbook while he is very much alive.

Many of the folksingers of the 1960’s attempted to use their music to become troubadours for social change. The most famous example, the early Bob Dylan, can be fairly described as the voice of his generation at that time. However, he fairly quickly moved on to other concepts of himself and his music. Bob Dylan’s work became more informed by the influences of Rimbaud and Verlaine and the French Symbolists of the late 1800’s and thus moved away to a more urban, sophisticated vision. From the start and consistently throughout his long career Utah has acted as a medium giving voice to the troubles of ordinary people and the simpler ethos of a more rural, Western-oriented gone by day in the American experience. He evokes in song the spirit of the people Walt Whitman paid homage to in poetic form and John Dos Passos and John Steinbeck gave in prose. He sits comfortably in very fast company. Therefore, Utah Phillips can justly claim the title of a people’s troubadour.

A word about politics. Generally, one rates music without reference to politics. However, Utah has introduced the political element by the way he structured the Songbook. Each song is introduced by him as to its significance heavily weighted to his political experiences, observations and vision. Thus, political comment is fairly in play here. Utah is a long time anarchist and unrepentant supporter of the Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World, hereafter IWW). Every militant cherishes the memory of the class battles led by the IWW like the famous Lawrence strike of 1912 and honors the heroes of those battles like Big Bill Haywood and Vincent St. John and the militants they recruited to the cause of the working class in the first part of the 20th century. They paved the way for the later successful organization drives of the 1930’s.

Nevertheless, while Utah and I would both most definitely agree that some old-fashioned class struggle by working people in today’s one-sided class war would be a very good thing we as definitely differ on the way to insure a permanent victory for working people in order to create a decent society. In short, Utah’s prescriptions of good moral character, increased self-knowledge and the creation of small intentional communities are not enough. Under modern conditions it is necessary to take and safeguard political power against those who would quite consciously deny that victory. History has been cruel in some of the bitter lessons working people have had to endure for not dealing with the question of taking state power to protect their interests. But, enough said. I am more than willing to forgive the old curmudgeon his anarchist sins if he’ll sing ‘I Remember Loving You’ the next time he tours the Boston area.

In Honor Of The King Of The Folk-Singing Hard-Living Hobos The Late Utah Phillips -From The Archives- *Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By- Utah Phillips" "All Used Up"

A "YouTube" film clip for "All Used Up"  this one gives the same idea, or is in the same spirit.

In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here.

ALL USED UP
( U. Utah Phillips)

I spent my whole life making somebody rich
I busted my ass for that son of a bitch
He left me to die like a dog in a ditch
And told me I'm all used up

He used up my labor, he used up my time
He plundered my body and squandered my mind
Then he gave me a pension, some handouts and wine
And told me I'm all used up

My kids are in hock to a god you call Work
Slaving their lives out for some other jerk
And my youngest in 'Frisco just made shipping-clerk
He don't know I'm all used up

Some young people reach out for power and gold
And they don't have respect for anything old
For pennies they're bought, for promises sold
Someday they'll be used up

They use up the oil, they use up the trees
They use up the air and they use up the seas
But how about you, friend, and how about me
What's left, when we're all used up

I'll finish my life in this crummy hotel
It's lousy with bugs and my God, what a smell
But my plumbing still works and I'm clear as a bell
Don't tell me I'm all used up

Outside my window the world passes by
It gives me a handout, then spits in my eye
And no one can tell me, 'cause no one knows why
I'm still living, but I'm all used up

Sometimes in a dream I sit by a tree
My life is a book of how things used to be
And the kids gather 'round and they listen to me
They don't think I'm all used up

And there's songs and there's laughter and things I can do
And all that I've learned I can give back to you
And I'd give my last breath just to make it come true
And to know I'm not all used up

They use up the oil, they use up the trees
They use up the air and they use up the seas
But as long as I'm breathing they won't use up me
Don't tell me I'm all used up

For Kate McGarrigle’s Birthday- In Honor Of Lena Spencer- Caffé Lena And Saratoga’s Folk Scene

For The Late Rosalie Sorrels-In Honor Of Lena Spencer- Caffé Lena And Saratoga’s Folk Scene

If I Could Be The Rain I Would Be Rosalie Sorrels-The Legendary Folksinger-Songwriter Has Her Last Go Round At 83 (June 2017)

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 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. That is where names like Baez, Dylan, Paxton, Ochs, Collins and a whole crew of younger folksingers who 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 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 at the Club Nana when that was the spot of spots. Strictly aficionado stuff if you 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 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 other colleges. That was Caffe Lena’s, run by the late Lena Spenser, a true folk legend and character in her own right, where some of those names played 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 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, out there in the West, not the West Coast west that is different, 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. Tough going 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). Tough too when you 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.  

The last time I saw Rosalie perform in person was back in 2002 when she performed at what was billed as her last go-round, her hanging up her shoes from the dusty travel road. She 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) cast a pall over the proceedings. I will always remember 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 whenever I hear her name. RIP Rosalie Sorrels

     

Caffé Lena, Kate McGarrigle and various artists, directed by Stephen Trombley, Miramar Production, 1991

I know of the work of, and have reviewed in this space, the late Utah Phillips, Rosalie Sorrels, obviously Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie, The McGarrigle family, David Bromberg and many of the other “singing” heads that populate this tribute documentary or found their way to Café Lena’s. Lena Spencer, owner, operator (and, from all accounts off-hand fairy godmother), through thick and thin, as thoroughly documented here , of Saratoga’s Café Lena was the impresario of the upstate New York’s booming 1960s folk scene. So there is a certain sense of déjà vu in viewing this film. This documentary film was probably as much about our youthful dreams and ambitions (and that hard musical road, although voluntarily chosen) as it was a tribute to Lena.

I know Saratoga and its environs well and if New York City’s Greenwich Village and Cambridge’s Harvard Square are better known in the 1960s folk revival geography that locale can serve as the folk crowd’s summer watering hole (and refuge from life’s storms all year round). From the descriptions of the café ‘s lifestyle and of the off-beat personality of Lena it also was a veritable experiment in ad hoc communal living). The folkies that did find found refuge there have been interesting behind- the- scenes stories to tell about Len that make this a very nice slice of history of the folk revival of the 1960s.

A special note to kind of bring us full circle. My first CD review of folksinger Rosalie Sorrels and the late Utah Phillips combined works together, who are highlighted in this documentary along with Kate and Anna McGarrigle, mentioned a spark of renewed recognition kindled on my part by the famous folk coffee house “The Café Lena” in Saratoga Springs, New York. Thus, it is rather fitting that Rosalie performs Utah’s “If I Could Be The Rain” and Utah his “Starlight On The Rails” here. Even more fitting are the McGarrigles performing their “Talk To Me Of Mendocino”, song composed in honor of Lena.

"Talk to Me of Mendocino"

written by Kate McGarrigle
© 1975 Garden Court Music (ASCAP)

I bid farewell to the state of old New York
My home away from home
In the state of New York I came of age
When first I started roaming
And the trees grow high in New York State
And they shine like gold in the autumn
Never had the blues from whence I came
But in New York State I got 'em

Talk to me of Mendocino
Closing my eyes I hear the sea
Must I wait
Must I follow
Won't you say come with me

And it's on to South Bend, Indiana
Flat out on the western plain
Rise up over the Rockies
And down on into California
Out to where but the rocks again
And let the sun set on the ocean
I will watch it from the shore
Let the sun rise over the redwoods
I'll rise with it till I rise no more

Talk to me of Mendocino
Closing my eyes I hear the sea
Must I wait
Must I follow
Won't you say come with me

*Don’t Mourn- Organize (And Maybe Sing A Song Or Two) - In Honor Of Labor Agitator/Songwriter Joe Hill

YouTube's film clip of Joan Baez performing "Joe Hill"

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 

Every Month Is Labor History Month

CD REVIEW

Don’t Mourn-Organize!: Songs Of Labor Songwriter Joe Hill, various artists, Smithsonian/Folkways, 1990

The name Joe Hill evokes, or at least it used to, very strong emotions among militants of the international labor movement. A casual check of any of the old time labor songs will, more likely than not, find Joe’s signature on or influence all over them. Thus, it is no surprise that Smithsonian/Folkways was able to find plenty of material and plenty of singer/songwriters ready and willing to pay tribute to an early labor militant and Industrial Workers Of The World (IWW, Wobblie) Joe Hill. As usual in a Smithsonian/Folkways production there are copious liner notes that give plenty of information about the Joe Hill’s life, his exploits, his influences and his frame-up execution in Utah in 1915. I will thus not spend much time on those areas but rather spend time on the highlights of the performances here.

By all indications Joe Hill was ready, as ready as a man (or woman) is ever ready to face his death by execution when the deal finally went down in 1915. That is the source of his legend and of the forthright admonition that he transmitted to fellow Wobblie the labor leader “Big Bill” Haywood- Don’t Mourn- Organize, or words to that effect. That sort phrase gives the substance of what Joe was trying to do every since he had landed in America several years earlier. As Hill pointed out one of the key ways that workers then (and now) get a sense of their conditions of life and from there get inspired to action is through song.

The long term truth of that strategy is open to debate but not the premise that song historically has been important to every progressive social movement (and others, as well, but here I am concerned with the international labor movement). In the propaganda wars of the class struggle Joe Hill produced some memorable songs that were set to popular melodies of the day or old time religious tunes. Those efforts are on full display here in such songs as “The Preacher And The Slave”, “The White Slave” and “Rebel Girl”. So if you hear melodies that sound familiar, as well as words that express the social concerns of his day and ours (white slavery, wage struggles, the influence of religion, union organizing, the fight against the bosses, etc.) your ears are not deceiving you.

As to the performances here there is a virtual who’s who of the labor left cultural workers, from the past and the present. Billy Bragg on the late pro-labor folksinger Phil Ochs’ tribute “Joe Hill”. The recently departed old unrepentant Wobblie Utah Phillips reciting “Joe Hill’s Last Will”. A nice piece about “Joe Hill’s Ashes” by Mark Levy. “The Tramp” by Cisco Houston, Woody Guthrie’s old traveling companion and comrade (who was an important folk figure in his own right). The above-mentioned “The White Slave” by Hill contemporary old Wobblie Alfred Cortez as well as “The Preacher And The Slave” by “Haywire Mac” McClintock of “Hard Rock Candy Mountain’ fame. That is enough to whet any labor historian or militant’s appetite. However there is more.

I want to pay special attention to three tracks. One is the powerful version of Alfred Hayes and Earl Robinson’s “Joe Hill” done by Paul Robeson. Anyone familiar with that name knows what I mean both about the voice and about his commitment to the labor movement (as a supporter of the Communist Party and its various cultural organizations). If not, then you are certainly in for a treat. The other is a narrative by the old ex-Wobblie and later Chairperson of the American Communist Party Elizabeth Gurley Flynn introducing the song that Joe Hill wrote for in 1915 just before his death, “Rebel Girl”. In the end she may have been less of a rebel girl than Brother Hill would have liked, but in those days she was a very effective militant IWW woman speaker (and pleasing to the male eye as well, a not unimportant trait in those days). Just hearing that voice from the history of the American labor movement talking about its heroic period was worth the price of admission. The then well-known mountain music singer and worker/woman’s rights advocate Hazel Dickens does the song. History, labor movement music and a tribute to Joe Hill. Nice.


Joe Hill’s Last Will

My will is easy to decide,
For there is nothing to divide,
My kin don’t need to fuss and moan-
“Moss does not cling to a rolling stone.”
My body? Ah, If I could choose,
I would to ashes it reduce,
And let the merry breezes blow
My dust to where some flowers grow.
Perhaps some fading flower then
Would come to life and bloom again.
This is my last and final will,
Good luck to all of you, Joe Hill

Joe Hill was an IWW man. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was, and is a radical union dedicated to abolishing the wage system and replacing it with a democratic system of workplace organization.

Joe Hill was a migrant laborer to the US from Sweden, a poet, musician and union radical. The term “pie in the sky” is believed to come from his satirical song, “The Preacher and the Slave”.

Hill was framed for murder and executed by firing squad in Salt Lake City, Utah on November 19, 1915. His last words were, “Fire!”

Just before his death he wrote to fellow IWW organizer Big Bill Haywood a letter which included the famous words, “Don’t mourn, Organize”.

The poem above was his will. It was set to music and became the basis of a song by Ethel Raim called “Joe Hill’s Last Will”.

A praise poem by Alfred Hayes became the lyrics of the best-known song about Joe Hill, written in 1936 by Earl Robinson. This was sung so beautifully by Joan Baez at Woodstock in 1969:

Joe Hill

words by Alfred Hayes
music by Earl Robinson

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
Alive as you and me.
Says I “But Joe, you’re ten years dead”
“I never died” said he,
“I never died” said he.

“In Salt Lake, Joe,” says I to him,
him standing by my bed,
“They framed you on a murder charge,”
Says Joe, “But I ain’t dead,”
Says Joe, “But I ain’t dead.”

“The Copper Bosses killed you Joe,
they shot you Joe” says I.
“Takes more than guns to kill a man”
Says Joe “I didn’t die”
Says Joe “I didn’t die”

And standing there as big as life
and smiling with his eyes.
Says Joe “What they can never kill
went on to organize,
went on to organize”

From San Diego up to Maine,
in every mine and mill,
where working-men defend their rights,
it’s there you find Joe Hill,
it’s there you find Joe Hill!

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night,
alive as you and me.
Says I “But Joe, you’re ten years dead”
“I never died” said he,
“I never died” said he.

"The Preacher And The Slave"

Long-haired preachers come out every night,
Try to tell you what’s wrong and what’s right;
But when asked how ’bout something to eat
They will answer in voices so sweet

You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die

And the Starvation Army they play,
And they sing and they clap and they pray,
Till they get all your coin on the drum,
Then they tell you when you’re on the bum

Holy Rollers and Jumpers come out
And they holler, they jump and they shout
Give your money to Jesus, they say,
He will cure all diseases today

If you fight hard for children and wife-
Try to get something good in this life-
You’re a sinner and bad man, they tell,
When you die you will sure go to hell.

Workingmen of all countries, unite
Side by side we for freedom will fight
When the world and its wealth we have gained
To the grafters we’ll sing this refrain

You will eat, bye and bye,
When you’ve learned how to cook and how to fry;
Chop some wood, ’twill do you good
Then you’ll eat in the sweet bye and bye

The chorus is sung in a call and response pattern.

You will eat [You will eat] bye and bye [bye and bye]
In that glorious land above the sky [Way up high]
Work and pray [Work and pray] live on hay [live on hay]
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die [That's a lie!]

You will eat [You will eat] bye and bye [bye and bye]
When you’ve learned how to cook and how to fry [How to fry]
Chop some wood [Chop some wood], ’twill do you good [do you good]
Then you’ll eat in the sweet bye and bye [That's no lie]

THE REBEL GIRL

by Joe Hill /words updated/

There are women of many descriptions
In this cruel world as everyone knows
Some are living in beautiful mansions
And wearing the finest of clothes

There's the blue blooded queen and the princess
Who have charms made of diamonds and pearls
But the only and true kind of lady
Is the Rebel Girl

chorus:
She's a rebel girl, a rebel girl
To the working class she's the strength of this world
From Newfoundland to B.C.
She's fighting for you and for me

Yes she's there by our side
With her courage and pride
She's unequalled anywhere

And I'm proud to fight for freedom
With the rebel girl!


Pete Seeger Lyrics

Joe Hill Lyrics

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night
Alive as you or me.
Says I, "But Joe, you're ten years dead."
"I never died," says he,
"I never died," says he

"In Salt Lake, Joe," says I to him,
Him standing by my bed.
"They framed you on a murder charge."
Says Joe, "But I ain't dead,
Says Joe, "But I ain't dead."

"The copper bosses killed you, Joe,
They shot you, Joe," says I.
"Takes more than guns to kill a man."
Says Joe, "I didn't die,"
Says Joe, "I didn't die."

And standing there as big as life,
And smiling with his eyes,
Joe says, "What they forgot to kill
Went on to organize,
Went on to organize."

"Joe Hill ain't dead," he says to me,
"Joe Hill ain't never died.
Where working men are out on strike,
Joe Hill is at their side,
Joe Hill is at their side."

"From San Diego up to Maine
In every mine and mill,
Where workers strike and organize,"
Says he, "You'll find Joe Hill."
Says he, "You'll find Joe Hill."

I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night
Alive as you or me.
Says I, "But Joe, you're ten years dead."
"I never died," says he,
"I never died," says he.

Pete Seeger Lyrics

Talking Union Lyrics

If you want higher wages, let me tell you what to do;
You got to talk to the workers in the shop with you;
You got to build you a union, got to make it strong,
But if you all stick together, now, 'twont he long.
You'll get shorter hours,
Better working conditions.
Vacations with pay,
Take your kids to the seashore.

It ain't quite this simple, so I better explain
Just why you got to ride on the union train;
'Cause if you wait for the boss to raise your pay,
We'll all be waiting till Judgment Day;
We'll all he buried - gone to Heaven -
Saint Peter'll be the straw boss then.

Now, you know you're underpaid, hut the boss says you ain't;
He speeds up the work till you're 'bout to faint,
You may he down and out, but you ain't beaten,
Pass out a leaflet and call a meetin'
Talk it over - speak your mind -
Decide to do something about it.

'Course, the boss may persuade some poor damn fool
To go to your meeting and act like a stool;
But you can always tell a stool, though - that's a fact;
He's got a yellow streak running down his back;
He doesn't have to stool - he'll always make a good living
On what he takes out of blind men's cups.

You got a union now; you're sitting pretty;
Put some of the boys on the steering committee.
The boss won't listen when one man squawks.
But he's got to listen when the union talks.
He better -
He'll be mighty lonely one of these days.

Suppose they're working you so hard it's just outrageous,
They're paying you all starvation wages;
You go to the boss, and the boss would yell,
"Before I'd raise your pay I'd see you all in Hell."
Well, he's puffing a big see-gar and feeling mighty slick,
He thinks he's got your union licked.
He looks out the window, and what does he see
But a thousand pickets, and they all agree
He's a bastard - unfair - slave driver -
Bet he beats his own wife.

Now, boy, you've come to the hardest time;
The boss will try to bust your picket line.
He'll call out the police, the National Guard;
They'll tell you it's a crime to have a union card.
They'll raid your meeting, hit you on the head.
Call every one of you a goddamn Red -
Unpatriotic - Moscow agents -
Bomb throwers, even the kids.

But out in Detroit here's what they found,
And out in Frisco here's what they found,
And out in Pittsburgh here's what they found,
And down in Bethlehem here's what they found,
That if you don't let Red-baiting break you up,
If you don't let stool pigeons break you up,
If you don't let vigilantes break you up,
And if you don't let race hatred break you up -
You'll win. What I mean,
Take it easy - but take it!



Pete Seeger Lyrics

If I Had A Hammer Lyrics

If I had a hammer,
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening,
All over this land.

I'd hammer out danger,
I'd hammer out a warning,
I'd hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

If I had a bell,
I'd ring it in the morning,
I'd ring it in the evening,
All over this land.

I'd ring out danger,
I'd ring out a warning
I'd ring out love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

If I had a song,
I'd sing it in the morning,
I'd sing it in the evening,
All over this land.

I'd sing out danger,
I'd sing out a warning
I'd sing out love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

Well I got a hammer,
And I got a bell,
And I got a song to sing, all over this land.

It's the hammer of Justice,
It's the bell of Freedom,
It's the song about Love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.

It's the hammer of Justice,
It's the bell of Freedom,
It's the song about Love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.