Tuesday, February 26, 2008

A heart for Utah Phillips


Bruce Phillips, better known as Utah Phillips, 72, the legendary folk singer, storyteller and activist, has spent the last three weeks in a San Francisco hospital where he was treated for ongoing heart and kidney problems. Although he has suffered from heart ailments since the mid-1990s, Phillips is due to be released this week and will return to his Nevada City, Calif. home without getting a heart transplant.
"I'll take it one day at a time," Phillips said from his hospital bed last week. "This body, which I've taken through hell, told me [I wouldn't survive the surgery]. I've got a chance this way. I'll stretch it all the way I can."
Phillips lived in Salt Lake City from 1947 to 1969, which included a run for the U.S. Senate on the Peace and Freedom Ticket. Described as the "Golden Voice of the Great Southwest," Phillips is considered an elder statesman to folk musicians who believe their music should agitate as well as entertain. Endowed with a sharp wit and folksy humor, Phillips has been a cowboy poet, hobo, songwriter, radio host and labor activist whose storytelling and writings about Southwestern life and Utah have come to be treasured. (read more>>)

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