As the son of legendary folk performer Bruce “Utah” Phillips, Duncan Phillips began travelling on the road with his father in the winter of 2000. Utah referred to Duncan as his “road manager,” but Duncan jokes that everyone knows his father couldn’t be managed.
Utah always had the dream of playing on stage together with his son, but as a kid, Duncan could never reconcile that in learning to play the guitar, he would be learning one of the very things that kept him separated from his father for so many years.
Duncan performed on stage just shortly after his dad’s death in 2008.
Along with Utah’s old road-worn Guild guitar, Duncan inherited the songs and stories of the people and places that his father wrote about over his 40-plus years of wandering the country.
In Duncan’s own words: “Well, even though he may be gone, every time I’m on the stage, he is there with me and this my story, so far…oh yeah, I do live in Utah.”
Kate MacLeod, Kat Eggleston and Duncan Phillips are on tour in support of “Lost and Found” and “Long Gone.” They will perform Tuesday, Jan. 17 at the Cumberland Hotel. Door 7:30 p.m., show 8:30 p.m. Tickets ($20)
are available at the hotel. Call 250-336-8844 for more information. The show is presented by Vancouver Island MusicFest.
“What we do is similar to when my father Utah travelled with Jim Ringer, Mark Ross or Kate Wolf. It’s a bit like a travelling folk festival, we my take turns opening up for each other or do songs in the round. It’s a little different every night,” says Duncan Phillips.
Kate MacLeod and Kat Eggleston have performed together since 1999 and have now completed their second duo recording, Lost and Found, to be distributed by Waterbug Records. Their duo recordings supplement their individual work as roots-music songwriters and performers, but as a duo their charm and musicality transform into a sum greater than its parts. Their new CD features original songs, traditional instrumental pieces from the British Isles, and a few surprise covers including one by the super-group ABBA.
Long Gone is a regional recording comprised of artists from in and around the state of Utah. The eclectic group of twenty or so artists includes former music students and band mates of the late Utah Phillips, as well as artists that have been influenced by his vast body of work over the years.
Just as Bruce did, all of the musicians on this recording still call Utah home, and are well-established artists in their own right. The CD was produced by Utah’s own Kate MacLeod.
Many of the songs on this tribute CD are regional to the state of Utah and tell the story of the West as “Utah” saw it. Throughout the recording process, all of the guitar work was performed on “Utah’s” old road-worn Guild guitar, the same guitar that his son Duncan Phillips now uses on stage to pay tribute to his father: “The Golden Voice of the Great Southwest ” Bruce “Utah” Phillips.
