Card-carrying Wobbly and raconteur of the rural Southwest, Utah Phillips is revered for his unadorned but intensely lyrical balladry and his ability to engage audiences with the wisdom and down-home bonhomie of an old-timey cracker-barrel philosopher. More recently, Phillips has earned the adulation of angst-folky Ani Difranco. The result -- 1996's the past doesn't go anywhere -- is unlike anything Phillips has done before: a spoken word sculpture (with Laurie Anderson's fingerprints all over it) set against a backdrop of Funk/rap/country rhythms.
