The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #161057   Message #3825162
Posted By: Dan Schatz
08-Dec-16 - 12:40 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req/Add: Paddy Welcome Back (Utah Phillips)
Subject: RE: req/ADD: Paddy Welcome Back (Utah Phillips)
One more thought on producing Singing Through the Hard Times -

Lots of musicians had strong opinions on how Utah's legacy should be approached, or ways that things should be done. When they would call him up, I think he tended to give them the impression that he shared those opinions. People would ask him, "What would you think if I did it this thing," or "How about if I did it this way," and Utah would say, in essence, "absolutely, that's how it should be done."

So I'd get some artists calling me and saying, "Utah really wants to make sure all the songs are exactly as he wrote them" while others said, "Utah is very happy to see all these musicians taking the songs in their own directions and making them their own."

What he said to me was how happy and grateful he was that the album was getting made, and how much it meant to him that all these folks were coming together, including his son, his hero Pete Seeger, many of his best friends, etc. I asked him if anyone was missing from the artist list he really wanted to include, and he mentioned Harry Tuft (who ended up doing one of my favorite tracks on the CD). That conversation was very shortly before he died.

Dan