UTAH PHILLIPS: Making Speech Free

Utah Phillips

Making Speech Free

© 2000 Utah Phillips

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Recorded live in performance at a free speech conference in San Francisco, this recording includes both songs and stories about free speech-both its power and its fragility.

notes

Utah Phillips has crafted a fascinating show out of his life. In the course of seventy years he has labored as a dishwasher, archivist, printer, and warehouseman; soldiered in the Korean War; lived as a tramp (he is still a Grand Duke of Hoboes), and for the past 36 years made his way telling stories and singing songs. He has the wit, humor, bite, and intelligence of a Mark Twain or a Will Rogers, and behind his "Everyman" appearance is a consummate artist. Peppered with one-liners and offhand philosophical commentary, Utah's revealing stories, about such spirited American characters as Charley Goodnight, Mother Jones, and Idaho Blackie, tell our true history and connect us to American traditions that are genuinely ours.
Utah Phillips is described as "a national treasure, a writer of haunting songs, a storyteller of hilarious presence and subtle depth, a union organizer, historian and scholar, a Celtic-Yiddish bard, a Pleistocene bon vivant, a post-modern ne'er-do-well, and a heck of an engineer." A 40-year member of the Industrial Workers of the World, he is the most entertaining labor troubadour of our time, leading his audience on an emotional rollercoaster with side-splitting storytelling and fire-breathing working class songs. According to one reviewer, "Phillips exemplifies some of the traits which Americans most value: an open and inquisitive mind, a daring heart, and a sharp but humorous tongue." The Boston Globe said, "Phillips above all is a consummate showman, a master of the theater...Phillips has a genius for making people laugh and care at the same time." He is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the North American Folk Alliance, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Western Labor Heritage Foundation, and the Joe Hill Award from the Labor Heritage Foundation-AFL-CIO, among many others.

reviews

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  • author: WD Arnold

    Songs that can help make you proud of American history and what our country has achieved, and how important our history is, and that it needs to be known and kept in our hearts and minds.

  • Wonderful Mix of Song and Story
    author: Buddy Bell

    Anyone who loves folk music and commentary to go with would be overjoyed to hear this album. Utah brings heros and heras from history alive, telling their stories and singing their songs of spirit and struggle.

  • Treasure for any collection
    author: Inexplicably nostalgic college student

    They're songs of what appears to be an almost entirely lost era, and stories of people who many more would consider heros of American history, if only they knew. Utah Phillips has a way of combining humor, nostalgia, history, and music to create an encapsulation of the true American essence, and a reminder of what free speech and civil liberty truly means. The songs range from upbeat picket marches to sentimental laments, and each one is so touching that after the first time you listen to this cd, you'll feel changed. If not, you are a heartless robot, or a politician. The stories put faces and memories to names you may recognize but don't really know the history of. Characters include Mother Jones, Ammon Hennessy, and Lucy Parsons, amongst others, not to mention Utah himself.

  • Thought provoking history of this country we should all know.
    author: Charlie (Chuckie Wuckie) Maier

    A live recording withn excellent sound quality. As usual, Utah tells us the history of this country that's not in the books. Great songs and stories of the fight of the labor unions and the people who created them. Plenty of bad jokes and puns. Hearing Utah live is a treat.

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