Music by Utah Phillips and Mark Ross

Leslie Fiedler once said that the essence of the American Experience is "Running Away From Home."  I've run away from home enough times in my life to make up for any number of home-guards.

These songs and stories are about the travelling life, most of it on the western freight trains over a 30 year period.  The tales come live performances recorded during the past ten years or so and kindly forwarded to me by friends who thought they might be useful.  For this, I am deeply grateful.

Loafer's Glory is, by the way, the name of a hobo jungle under the old Western Pacific water tower by Keddie, California, at the top of the Feather River canyon.  For awhile it was almost like a second home to me.

The songs, for the most part never recorded before, have been with me since about 1960.  I think they're pretty much self-explanatory.   Two of them, Shadowmaker and Aces, Straights and Flushes languished in my notebooks until Kate Wolf found them and gave them tunes.  Another, Look For Me in Butte, was given its voice by my old friend and comrade, Mark Ross of Butte, Montana.  Mark plays all the music on this recording.  It is no exaggeration to say that Mark Ross is the best tramp I know, the only in my experience to survive a train wreck.

Mark is the official troubadour of the Hobo convention in Britt, Iowa where I'm a Grand Duke myself.  Now, you could county on the fingers of one hand those folk musicians making their living sharing the traditional repertoire.  Mark is, to my way of thinking, the best song, harmonica, guitar, banjo, mandolin, blues to bluegrass, Appalachia to the Labor Movement.  Mark has delved into and mastered an enormous amount of traditional American music which he performs with style, panache, and vast élan.  He's simply the best, so latch on to him now.   He ain't getting any younger.

Utah Phillips

Loafer's Glory

Order from:
No Guff
Box 1235
Nevada City, CA 95959
(530) 265-2476

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