Utah Phillips: A concert to mark the life of his songs

Ken Sanders Rare Books and SLUG magazine present a concert celebrating the re-release of Utah Phillips' songbook Starlight on the Rails on Saturday, March 24 at 7 p.m. The event will be at the bookstore, 268 S. 200 East, Salt Lake City.

At the concert, three local bands , all influenced by the late songwriter — The Folka Dots, The Trappers and The North Valley — will play Phillips' songs and some of their originals. A new edition of the songbook will be available for sale ($30).

The songwriter's son, Duncan Phillips, contributed a forward to this edition of the songbook. "Over the years and decades that followed (after his father moved away from Utah following an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate in 1968), that songbook became my only tangible connection to my father. .. I would thumb through it from time to time, stop at a song and do what children do best: daydream of where he might be and what great adventures he must surely be on."

David Burger