Utah Phillips
I'm listening to across the great divide on KPFA. They're doing a tribute.
Utah Phillips died on Friday.
He was my history teacher, although I never knew him. I met him once, and I carried his accompanist's dobro of the stage of "Katestock" as Wavie Gravy calls it, once.
I would wait around for him to come onto the radio at five o clock on sundays, record and listen to the show, and then that week I would go to the library and look up the historical events he mentioned. It was an interesting combination of Utah, Zinn, Leowen, whatever the library had, and my dad's record collection. I was going to compile the stuff and write a book of the last hundred years of US history through folk music, and Utah was my inspiration. I tried to get my grandpa to tell me his stories, and Utah was what prompted me.
It was my ambition to grow up to be like him when I got old. Or maybe like Rosalie Sorrells, or some combination of the two.
Also, I grew up thinking my dad had made up Utah's stories, they were such a part of my childhood. Dad incorporated them into his "Christmas Menorah" saga, which became a community tradition, going along with jelly donuts and latkes at Rebecca's house.
Early in our relationship I seduced Aaron with some of those stories, straddling his lap and telling him about how my dad and his friend Dave hitchhiked through Salt lake City Utah and went fishing while they were still there, how my Uncle Brown once fed me oatmeal with a cockroach in the bottom of the bowl, and others.
The Kate Wolf festival will have another ghost hanging over it this year.
His stories, songs, and voice are a huge part of my childhood, and had a large part in shaping the way I see the world.
Utah Phillips died on Friday.
He was my history teacher, although I never knew him. I met him once, and I carried his accompanist's dobro of the stage of "Katestock" as Wavie Gravy calls it, once.
I would wait around for him to come onto the radio at five o clock on sundays, record and listen to the show, and then that week I would go to the library and look up the historical events he mentioned. It was an interesting combination of Utah, Zinn, Leowen, whatever the library had, and my dad's record collection. I was going to compile the stuff and write a book of the last hundred years of US history through folk music, and Utah was my inspiration. I tried to get my grandpa to tell me his stories, and Utah was what prompted me.
It was my ambition to grow up to be like him when I got old. Or maybe like Rosalie Sorrells, or some combination of the two.
Also, I grew up thinking my dad had made up Utah's stories, they were such a part of my childhood. Dad incorporated them into his "Christmas Menorah" saga, which became a community tradition, going along with jelly donuts and latkes at Rebecca's house.
Early in our relationship I seduced Aaron with some of those stories, straddling his lap and telling him about how my dad and his friend Dave hitchhiked through Salt lake City Utah and went fishing while they were still there, how my Uncle Brown once fed me oatmeal with a cockroach in the bottom of the bowl, and others.
The Kate Wolf festival will have another ghost hanging over it this year.
His stories, songs, and voice are a huge part of my childhood, and had a large part in shaping the way I see the world.