Singing Through the Hard Times: A Tribute to Utah Phillips

Folk singer Bruce “Utah” Phillips identified himself as an anarchist, but that didn’t stop him from making a 1968 bid for the U.S. Senate in Utah. He lost, but he got plenty of his ideas across through his music, fed by his years as a rail rider, soldier in the Korean War and unflinching supporter and member of the Industrial Workers of the World labor union (aka “the Wobblies”).

Phillips died last year before he could hear the finished product of a compilation that was released recently, Singing Through the Hard Times: A Tribute to Utah Phillips. This 39-track, double-disc set isn’t just folk-inspired. Most of the contributors sound like folk purists—the kind of people who, when the crowd booed Bob Dylan during his electric set at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, would have chimed right in.

Casual music fans will recognize a few big names here, such as Emmylou Harris (“Green Rolling Hills of West Virginia”), Pete Seeger (“Or Else! (One-a These Days)”) and Ani DiFranco, whose Righteous Babe Records is releasing the set. Diehard folkies will notice Tom Paxton—who won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award last month—Jean Ritchie, Rosalie Sorrels and probably a couple of others. And then there are quite a few relatively unknown singers, strummers, banjo pickers and the like.

Emmylou could sing stock-market symbols, and I’d still enjoy it. She just has one of those consistently wonderful, engaging voices. There are some strong offerings from relative unknowns, too, such as Saul Broudy’s cowboy-country take on “Starlight on the Rails” and the hypnotic drone of “Hymn Song” captured by Emma’s Revolution.

But 39 tracks is excessive for just about any compilation, so it’s no shock that there are some not-so-strong tracks. Lisa Null’s take on “All About Preachers” sounds like an open-mike out-take, and Judy Cook’s “Kid’s Liberation” and a couple of others are a stone’s throw from the folk parodies of Christopher Guest’s A Mighty Wind. (Those interpretations are admittedly spot-on, so that’s not a scathing critique.)

Not surprisingly, what reverberates most on this compilation is Phillips’s storytelling and social-change sentiments. When the thread by which our country’s infrastructure hangs gets more frayed each week, there couldn’t be a more timely sentiment than the chorus from the album’s title track: “We are singing through the hard times, singing through the hard times, working for the good times to come.”

mp3: Magpie, Dan Schatz, Emma's Revolution & more... - Singing Through the Hard Times