Folk Singer Bruce "Utah" Phillips Dead at 73

Folk singer and activist Bruce "Utah" Phillips, whose songs included tales of the state's working class and tragedies, died Friday of congestive heart failure.
Phillips, 73, died in Nevada City, Calif., where he resided. While not among the biggest names in folk music, Phillips described himself as the "Golden Voice of the Great Southwest" and was an influence for artists such as Emmylou Harris, Waylon Jennings, Joan Baez and Tom Waits, who have recorded his songs. An album Phillips recorded with Ani DiFranco received a Grammy nomination.
"Many artists extract from working and poor people for authenticity," friend and environmental writer Jordan Fisher Smith said. "He also gave it back ... he extracted the meaning and gave it back to the people experiencing it."
Phillips songs included "John D. Lee," a recounting of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Another song, "Scofield Mine Disaster" recalled the 1900 central Utah coal mine explosion that killed 200 people.
"A miner's life is hard I know," Phillips wrote and sang. "His world is dark and far below/While he starves and goes in rags/He's cheaper than the coal he digs."
Phillips son, Duncan Phillips, who lives in Salt Lake City, said his father was enthralled with Utah's working class, particularly Mormons and their folklore.
"They were kind of put aside and chased off like a lot of other people in the world are," Daman Phillips said. "He tried to look at both sides of things and understand people and bring some common ground."
Born May 15, 1935, in Cleveland to labor organizer parents, Bruce Phillips and his family came to Utah in 1947. His parents became distributors for Paramount movie studio and owned the Capitol Theatre and Tower Theatre until their deaths, Duncan Phillips said.
Bruce Phillips served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. Disturbed by the fighting, Bruce Phillips returned to the states and was drinking and "bumming" on freight trains when he ended up in the Joe Hill House, a Salt Lake City homeless shelter named for a labor organizer.
He went on to work as an archivist for the state, where he learned much of Utah's history.
Ken Sanders, owner of Ken Sanders Rare Books in Salt Lake City, met Phillips in the 1960s.
"He was always working on the rights of others," he said. "He spent an awful lot of his life bumming around the country, spent a little of his life as a hobo. He was never in one city for a long time."
Bruce Phillips left Salt Lake City in 1969, believing that a failed run for the U.S. Senate with the Peace and Freedom party left him blacklisted.
"He tried to get work and everywhere turned him down," Duncan Phillips said.
A short time later, he released his first album. After years of touring, Bruce Phillips settled in Nevada City, Calif., with his fourth wife Joanna Robinson.
He used his music and notoriety to remain an activist. In 2005, he told The Tribune, "When I go play a town I haven't been to in a while, I want them to send me the newspaper so I can get caught up on the local issues. Then I go to the library and read up on the history and economic base and economic distribution so I know the right questions to ask."
Phillips played in Utah as recently as January 2007 at a folk revival at Highland High School.
Phillips' other survivors include another son and a daughter, several stepchildren, brothers and sisters and a grandchild. The family requests memorial donations go to Hospitality House, a homeless shelter founded by Phillips in Grass Valley, Calif. Additional information is available at www.hospitalityhouseshelter.org.