Fellow Workers

Ani Difranco, Utah Phillips - Fellow Workers

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CD Details

Artist: Ani Difranco, Utah Phillips
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1999-05-18
Music Label: Righteous Babe
Soundtracks:

Joe Hill (Instrumental)
Stupid's Song
The Most Dangerous Woman
Stupid's Pledge
Direct Action
Pie In The Sky
Shoot Or Stab Them
Lawrence
Bread And Roses
Why Come?
Unless You Are Free
I will Not Obey
The Long Memory
The Silence That Is Me
Joe Hill
The Saw-Playing Musician
Dump The Bosses
The Internationale

Music reviews of Fellow Workers

Music Review: Ode of an Old Wobblie
Rating: 4 Stars

This review was originally written as a commentary on Utah Phillip's Songbook- Starlight on the Trial issued in 2005. Looking it over I believe that the comments can be applied to this CD as well, obviously noting the differences in format. Utah has been consistent throughout his career in both the kind of songs he writes and sings about. He has also maintained his same basic political philosophy so my comments about our political differences also apply. Nevertheless, treasure any CD of his you can get your hands on.

The political consciousness developed in my youth coincided with an expansion of my musical tastes under the influence of the great blues and folk revivals of the 1960's. Unfortunately my exposure to the blues greats was mainly on records as many of them had been forgotten, retired or were dead. Not so with the folk revival this was created mainly by those who were close contemporaries. Alas, they too are now mainly forgotten, retired or dead. It therefore is with special pleasure that I review Utah Phillips Songbook while he is very much alive.

Many of the folksingers of the 1960 have attempted to use their music to become troubadours for social change. The most famous example, the early Bob Dylan, can be fairly described as the voice of his generation at that time. However, he fairly quickly moved on to other concepts of himself and his music. Bob Dylan's work became more informed by the influences of Rimbaud and Verlaine and the French Symbolists of the late 1800's and thus moved away to a more urban, sophisticated vision. From the start and consistently throughout his long career Utah has acted as a medium giving voice to the troubles of ordinary people and the simpler ethos of a more rural, Western-oriented gone by day in the American experience. He evokes in song the spirit of the people Walt Whitman paid homage to in poetic form and John Dos Passos and John Steinbeck gave in prose. He sits conformably in that very fast company. Utah Phillips can justly claim the title of a people's troubadour.

A word about politics. Generally, one rates music without reference to politics. However, Utah has introduced the political element by the way he structured the Songbook. Each song is introduced by him as to its significance heavily weighted to his political experiences, observations and vision. Thus, political comment is fairly in play here. Utah is a long time anarchist and unrepentant supporter of the Wobblies (International Workers of the World, hereafter IWW). Every militant cherishes the memory of the class battles led by the IWW like the famous Lawrence strike of 1912 and honors the heroes of those battles like Big Bill Haywood and Vincent St. John and the militants they recruited to the cause of the working class in the first part of the 20th century. They paved the way for the later successful organization drives of the 1930's.

Nevertheless, while Utah and I would both most definitely agree that some old-fashioned class struggle by working people in today's one-sided class war would be a very good thing we as definitely differ on the way to insure a permanent victory for working people in order to create a decent society. In short, Utah's prescriptions of good moral character, increased self-knowledge and the creation of small intentional communities are not enough. Under modern conditions it is necessary to take and safeguard political power against those who would quite consciously deny that victory. History has been cruel in some of the bitter lessons working people have had to endure for not dealing with the question of taking state power to protect their interests. But, enough said. I am more than willing to forgive the old curmudgeon his anarchist sins if he'll sing `I Remember Loving You' the next time he tours the Boston area.

More Fellow Workers free music reviews:
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Description of Fellow Workers

Japanese Version Featuring A Bonus Track.

Following their successful 1996 The Past Didn't Go Anywhere collaboration, anticorporate folksinger Ani DiFranco and vagabond historian-storyteller Utah Phillips gather for another rousing round, though Fellow Workers is a looser, funkier, more acoustic affair than its predecessor. These sessions step lively: the performers burst into seemingly spontaneous applause, cheers, and laughter. Phillips honors civil disobedience, leftist matriarch Mother Jones, and the complex feelings entwined with the promise of a better America. The album's core lies where "The Long Memory"'s soulful organ, bass, and trumpet flow into the powerful "The Silence That Is Me." DiFranco and band provide mellow fingerpicking, shattered beats, hopped-up Wurlitzer, and bass-heavy funk, beautifully complementing Phillips's wry tales and paying homage to the invaluable oral tradition. --Paige La Grone

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