This in from Red House Records:
“It is with great regret that Red House Records mourns the loss of our friend Bruce ‘Utah’ Phillips who passed away Friday, May 23, at his home in Nevada City, Calif. In a time when words like ‘icon’ and ‘legend’ are bandied
about too freely, Utah was the real deal: a consummate songwriter, labor historian, humorist and towering figure in American folk music. A true original, we will not see his like again and it was our great privilege to have been able to partner with him on a number of record releases. Our deepest condolences go out to Utah’s family and many
friends and the countless fans who will profoundly feel his absence. His family requests memorial donations to Hospitality House, P.O. Box 3223, Grass Valley, CA 95945; (530) 271-7144; www.hospitalityhouseshelter.org.
“Born Bruce Duncan Phillips on May 15, 1935, in Cleveland, Ohio, he was the son of labor organizers. Whether through this early influence or an early life that was not always tranquil or easy, by his twenties Phillips demonstrated a lifelong concern with the living conditions of working people. He was a proud member of the Industrial Workers of the World, popularly known as “the Wobblies,” an organizational artifact of early 20th century labor struggles that has seen renewed interest and growth in membership in the last decade, not in small part due to his efforts to popularize it. Phillips served as an Army private during the Korean War, an experience he would later refer to as the turning point of his life. Deeply affected by the devastation and human misery he had witnessed, upon his return to the United States he began drifting, riding freight trains around the country.
“His struggle would be familiar today, when the difficulties of returning combat veterans are more widely understood, but in the late ’50s Phillips was left to work them out for himself. Destitute and drinking, Phillips got off a freight train in Salt Lake City and wound up at the Joe Hill House, a homeless shelter operated by the anarchist Ammon Hennacy, a member of the Catholic Worker movement and associate of Dorothy Day. Phillips credited Hennacy and other social reformers he referred to as his ‘elders’ with having provided a philosophical framework around which he later constructed songs and stories he intended as a template his audiences could employ to understand their own political and working lives. They were often hilarious, sometimes sad, but never shallow. ‘He made me understand that music must be more than cotton candy for the ears,’ said John McCutcheon, a nationally known folksinger and close friend.