Sine of the Times
Despite a bad cough I've developed over the last week, I made the pilgrimage on Thursday night in below-zero wind-chill weather to see one of my folk heroes, Utah Phillips, perform at Passim. Utah is an activist and labor organizer, former hobo and rail rider. He has made his living since the '60s as a folk singer based in Nevada City, California. A bum ticker has kept him closer to home in recent years, and he's 72 years old, so I didn't want to miss this tour.
He sang the familiar railroad ballads as well as some ditties he'd written for his three kids when they were little, one of whom, grown now and a labor organizer herself, was in attendance at the gig, along with Utah's wife, Joanna. Audience participation at a Utah gig is mandatory, in keeping with the folk traditions he's worked so hard to keep going. The very least we can do is sing along, actually. So I did, between coughs, keep time with the Cambridge folkies beside me, their breath reeking of goat cheese and organic pitas. The songs were often comprised of melancholy lyrics set to a jaunty banjo rhythm, which Utah picked out nimbly from the club's tiny stage.
Utah's four decades of folk singing and rabble-rousing have seen lots of change, and most of it not for the better. I find comfort packed into this little Cambridge basement club with the folding chairs: while our country is going through its darkest days in some time, we've been here before, haven't we? Dylan plugged in; the Apollo missions nearly failed; Kennedy got shot; Lennon died in Central Park; oil prices skyrocketed; the towers fell. The sine wave is just at its nadir, and I have hope that the pendulum will swing the other way again. For now, like Utah in HIS darkest days, I'm staying close to the ground and keeping my head up. Is anybody here with me?
He sang the familiar railroad ballads as well as some ditties he'd written for his three kids when they were little, one of whom, grown now and a labor organizer herself, was in attendance at the gig, along with Utah's wife, Joanna. Audience participation at a Utah gig is mandatory, in keeping with the folk traditions he's worked so hard to keep going. The very least we can do is sing along, actually. So I did, between coughs, keep time with the Cambridge folkies beside me, their breath reeking of goat cheese and organic pitas. The songs were often comprised of melancholy lyrics set to a jaunty banjo rhythm, which Utah picked out nimbly from the club's tiny stage.
Utah's four decades of folk singing and rabble-rousing have seen lots of change, and most of it not for the better. I find comfort packed into this little Cambridge basement club with the folding chairs: while our country is going through its darkest days in some time, we've been here before, haven't we? Dylan plugged in; the Apollo missions nearly failed; Kennedy got shot; Lennon died in Central Park; oil prices skyrocketed; the towers fell. The sine wave is just at its nadir, and I have hope that the pendulum will swing the other way again. For now, like Utah in HIS darkest days, I'm staying close to the ground and keeping my head up. Is anybody here with me?
posted by expediency101 at 3:32 PM
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