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
George Mann - Songs of the IWW and Utah Phillips - May 15
by Boston IWW
Email: wbumpus62 (nospam) comcast.net (verified) 02 May 2011
A fundraiser for encuentro 5 sponsored by the Industrial Workers of the World
Sunday, May 15 @ 2:00 PM (Utah Phillip's birthday)
encuentro 5
33 Harrison Avenue, 5th floor in Chinatown
Suggested Admission $5-$12, no one turned away for lack of funds!
A fundraiser for encuentro 5 sponsored by the Industrial Workers of the World
Sunday, May 15 @ 2:00 PM (Utah Phillip's birthday)
encuentro 5
33 Harrison Avenue, 5th floor in Chinatown
Suggested Admission $5-$12, no one turned away for lack of funds!
George Mann is a New York-based folksinger who sings songs from the last century of labor and social activism, and his own songs are powerful and funny takes on the state of the nation. He also writes songs of hope, healing, struggle and triumph, and for years he recorded and performed with Julius Margolin, who was 93 when he died in August 2009.
His latest CD is "Songs for Jules and Bruce," with songs dedicated to and inspired by both Julius Margolin and Bruce "Utah" Phillips. He also produced the "Until You Come Home" CD, which features such folk legends as Tom Paxton, Utah Phillips, Holly Near, Magpie, John Gorka and more singing about the experiences of war and of returning home. Inspired by the book "Voices of Vets," George created this CD to help welcome home our returning service members and recognize the sacrifices they and their families have made for our country.
also appearing: special guest performer Sergio Reyes of the Boston May Day Committee
Phone: (617) 469-5162 for more info
*******
From the American Left History blog:
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
*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
Labels: ANARCHISM, communism, folk and politics, folk historian, folk revival, IWW, leon trotsky, Rosalie Sorrels, UTAH PHILLIPS
posted by Markin at 6:04 AM
3 Comments:
Jud said...
I miss Utah. I had the chance to meet him once when I was in college and he was doing a tour of the Deep South. In an ironic twist of fate, I had 'discovered' him only a few weeks prior in a cassette of his songs my dad had sent me. I went to his show and was captivated, bought a couple of IWW songbooks and had him sign one for my dad. Thanks for the memory and for helping keep the dreams alive.
8:26 PM
Skip Luke said...
I'm sure I saw him one time .... working as a telegraph operator at Tolono, Ill. on the Illinois Central where we crossed the old Wabash RR. (yes, that Tolono.) Guy with a beard, cowboy hat, and guitar gets off the Wabash passenger train and asks about a bus to Champaign. This was in the early 60's, IIRC. I didn't know anything about him at that time, but later when I became a fan and saw his picture, I am sure that it was him.
10:27 PM
Uncle Fred Wilson said...
Utah Phillips didn't write Starlight on the Rails, although he loved the song. It was written by Louise Scruggs for her husband Earl and Lester Flatt. Don't know where she got that kind of insight. Maybe through personal acquaintances. Uncle Fred Wilson
8:19 PM
