Fellow Workers

Utah Phillips, Ani DiFranco

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 18, 1999)
• Original Release Date: May 18, 1999
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Righteous Babe
• ASIN: B00000IWML
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #132,585 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
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

Product Description
Japanese Version Featuring A Bonus Track. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In A Wobbly's Living Room, June 17, 2004

By	S. L. Winant "aceethno" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I come to you not as a member of Ani's Army, but as an appreciative listener to Utah Phillips for maybe fifteen years. It was for that reason that I bought this CD--at a Utah show--and it is on that basis that I review it. For anyone who has seen Utah live ("and it comes to us highly recommended"), most of the usual cast of Labor characters can be found here: Stupid, Herb Edwards, Mother Jones, and of course Joe Hill. Indeed what is mostly captured on Fellow Workers is classic, colorful Wobbly Utah. On that basis alone, this CD is worth the time; collected here are many of the tales and simple songs that make up his off-kilter Union repertoire. THAT is what makes it a good listen, perhaps even a necessary listen, as Utah regales us with the stories of "those extraordinary lives that can never be lived again."

So what does Ani DiFranco bring? Aurally speaking, a band and production chops. Wisely she keeps that as a backdrop to Utah's words. Except for a few instrumental pieces, the band simply gives Utah a sort of funky, acoustic groove to rap over. This is the capturing of a live show (in New Orleans), and Ani has mostly downplayed studio trickery to keep the intimate, living room feel of the concert. But, of course, what Ani really brings is her Army. And the real purpose is to introduce Ani's followers to a man who is now an elder statesman of Direct Action. I already knew about Utah, and I already knew how to sing "Pie in the Sky." For me, and for fans of Utah, this album works because Utah is up front and in good form; it's an "Essential Recording" for Utah, if not necessarily Ani. For the Army...welcome to the history we were never taught. Take a seat and pay attention.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars dont buy it for ani, buy it for YOU!, November 20, 1999

By	susan ([e-mail]) (savannah georgia) - See all my reviews

alot of people bought this album because it said ani difranco on the cover, and got all pissy when they found out it was mostly just her playing guitar, and not singing that much. does anyone realize the point of this album? HELLO! its about US and what soooooo many forgotten people did, so we could have some of the rights we have today. its also a reminder to keep the ideals and dreams of those people. our world is far from perfect, and back then it was even farther. but they beleived in making a change, no matter how hard it was going to be, because they saw injustice and decided to do some thing aboutit. go buy some utah and become a human being again. ive known about utah for a while, and he is a truly beautiful soul. i think he and ani are one of the best combonations that could have been! THE DEGREE TO WHICH YOU RESIST, IS THE DEGREE TO WHICH YOU ARE FREE.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The soul of working people, May 21, 2003

By	OAKSHAMAN "oakshaman" (Algoma, WI United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

I really love this collection. Sure, it doesn't have a slick, polished studio sound. It sounds like real people making real music and telling real stories in the front parlor. This is what real people sound like- before the technicians and marketing people suck out the soul and turn them into a mass product.

These are some great old union songs combined with a bit of labor history in between. Yet this isn't dead and sterile history, for nothing could be more timely in today's world. In fact, this is one reason why I'm glad that Utah's voice isn't more polished- it doesn't distract from the lyrics and the message. And the message is that it is the workers that actually make this society run, we have the actual power, and the bosses don't give you anything out of the goodness of their hearts! You have to fight for it! You have to organise to get it! That was true a hundred years ago and it is just as true today.

In a time when workers are constantly being brainwashed by the corporate and political powers-that-be into thinking that they are disposable "losers" and paracites, it is refreshing to be reminded that it is the bosses that are the real disposable paracites. They live off our labor- sing it out! They are nothing without us- or without the workers in the foriegn countries where they are shipping our jobs.

This isn't simple minded nostalgia. It is deep rooted truth. This is an intelligent piece of work (Utah's back up is the Mensabilly band- like the High IQ society.)

The liner notes are by Howard Zinn (The People's History of the United States.) It is quite an educational tract in it's own right.