Albums by this artist

Fellow Workers (1999)

Ani DiFranco and Utah Phillips

Fellow Workers

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» KATHARINE KELLY | STAFF WRITER

Utah Phillips Fellow Workers Righteous Babe, 1999 RiYL: Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, folk-funk

The concept of taking old music and giving it a '90s twist is nothing new, but when Ani Difranco took folk legend Utah Phillips' work and turned it into the '96 release The Past Didn't Go Anywhere, the result was something really different -- and wonderful.

Using old recordings of Phillips' musical/storytelling sessions, DiFranco threw in funk beats and haunting backing vocals that ultimately made Phillips' performances even more intriguing. Unfortunately, this is not the case with the latest DiFranco/Phillips release, Fellow Workers.

While the first record was simply DiFranco working with previously recorded material, Fellow Workers finds the two musicians collaborating in the studio (they even get equal songwriting credit on several of the tracks).

Despite the guise of collaboration, however, it is clear that this record revolves around Phillips' work, not DiFranco's. Phillips still sings his simple, slightly off-key folk tunes and tells his amazing (and often amusing) tales of the past, while DiFranco sits in the background making only subtle, and often unnecessary, additions to Phillips' performances.

Such an imbalance made sense when Difranco was only working with pre-recorded material, but here Difranco's performance only serves to suggest that maybe Phillips' work doesn't need (or want) any of Difranco's alterna-folk flare. Fans of either of these folk heroes would be better off listening to the artists' many respective solo efforts.

KATHARINE KELLY |