WPKN (my favorite radio station in Bridgeport, Conn., which I can only pick up via Internet and RealAudio these days) played "Nevada Jane" this morning-- a version with a long spoken intro by Utah Phillips. He relates as to how he first found the song in Butte, Montana. He was doing union organizing there, and wound up in a Finnish bar in Finntown (the last of Finntown, most of which had been dug away by the mine). There, an older woman there who remembered Bill Haywood, and told him the story over Finlandia vodka of how Bill Haywood would bring his wife downtown at the start of the day to talk to the women of the town--the story quoted above in Art Thieme's post.

Some time later, Utah was driving to a gig in Hopewell Junction, New York [probably the Towne Crier?] with the late Kate Wolf, and started to relate the story of Bill Haywood and Nevada Jane to her. She said, "Stop the car! Here's a pen and a notebook. Sit in the back seat and write." So she drove the rest of the way while he turned the story into a song in the back of the car, and it was ready to try out that evening.

--Charlie Baum