Utah Phillips with Ani DiFranco
Fellow Workers (Righteous Babe)
by Jamie Kiffel
Says folk singer Utah Phillips of those kick-ass-tivists who came before him, “They lived those unbelievable lives that can never be lived again.” Yet, he goes on, he learned more from these rule-busters than he learned from any history book. It’s ironic, then, that Fellow Workers takes Phillips’ living, burning pleas for equality and justice, and backs them with Ani DiFranco‘s plodding, plain electronic noodling. It is as if DiFranco doesn’t believe Phillips’ own unbelievable life is still going on, so she frames him with simple, detached tones, like musical mummification. Even the CD cover art is a guilded metal frame with a black-and-white photo of DiFranco and Phillips inside, each barely smiling. But Phillips’ songs are living anthems, made to rouse and anger and excite. Folk singer/activist Pete Seeger, now in his eighties, skips around stage while singing and playing his banjo – and last time I saw him perform, his whole audience was clapping and shouting with him, including some kids in Misfits T-shirts.
(PO Box 95 Ellicott Station, Buffalo, NY 14205)