Just because she was nominated last week for the Grammy award in the traditional-folk category doesn't mean Rosalie Sorrels wants to be labeled a folk singer.

"I think of Bruce and me as primarily storytellers," Sorrels said, calling from her log home in the mountains near Boise, Idaho.

"Bruce" was better-known as Utah Phillips, the rabble-rousing folk icon who died in May, having gained a measure of notoriety late in life through his work with alt-rocker Ani DiFranco. He and Sorrels were friends for 55 years and performed and recorded together.

The Grammy nod is for her new CD, Strangers in Another Country: The Songs of Bruce "Utah" Phillips (Red House).

"I'm so tickled and surprised," Sorrels said. She's nominated in the category along with old friends Kathy Mattea, Tom Paxton, Pete Seeger and Peggy Seeger.

Both Strangers and Mattea's nominated album, Coal, showcase Phillips' best-known tune, Green Rolling Hills of West Virginia.

Backing Sorrels were Phillips fans and noted folkies including Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Bryan Bowers, Jay Ungar and Molly Mason, and Peggy Seeger.

The project is definitely not a greatest-hits collection.

"What I did was try to make it a story of the progress of his writing, his songs and stories" Sorrels said.

"It starts with songs he wrote in Korea. Then there were some from the time when he was working on Utah history and when he got involved with political things. There's Ashes on the Sea, a song he wrote for Woody Guthrie."

They met long before either had become a working musician.

"I was a young housewife then. I met him at a going-away party in Salt Lake City in the mid-'50s. He was on his way to Korea. It was a four- or five-day send-off, so we got to know each other," she said with a chuckle.

To Sorrels, Phillips' gift was that he could speak for hobos, miners, Wobblies and "other extraordinary people that everybody wanted to forget existed," she said.

"I'll tell you a story. I had two uncles who were those people. They were literate people who lived in the woods through the Depression. They really did ride the rails. They were also seriously committed drunks. They both lived to be 90 and remained absolutely interesting. They loved Bruce's songs because they were really authentic, true to their lives."

Sorrels had been semiretired for several years. "I had a retirement concert. I wanted to retire, but I can't. I don't have enough money, just like when I started out," she said.

She can still recall the words to hundreds of ballads and tales, but "I'm 75 years old and sometimes I can't remember the name of things that are right in front of my face," she said.

An upside of un-retiring, she said, is that she gets to visit the Mile High City, where she'll perform songs from the new CD tonight at Swallow Hill.

"I love Denver and I've played there so many times over the years. Harry Tuft (of Denver Folklore and Swallow Hill fame) saved our lives many times by booking us. I always stayed at his house when I was in town. But even back before I started singing, we used to visit and go to Five Points and hear the most amazing musicians. Denver always had an incredible jazz scene."

Although Sorrels and Phillips did quite a few shows and albums together, they were very different people.

"We both had a lot of the same attitudes, but I'd call it a dialogue, not a pairing, almost yin and yang. We always had a lively discussion going on," she said.

"I did a lot of traditional folk songs I collected from people sitting on a log somewhere. They really were old songs. Bruce made up everything that ever came out of his mouth," including his onstage persona, she said.

"He made himself into U. Utah Phillips, 'the golden voice of the Southwest.' He invented that old-guy thing. His hair turned white when he was young. He could convince everybody he was 85 years old.

"Bruce was a stranger to himself, just like me. That's why we got along so well."

lehndorffj@RockyMountainNews.com, 303-954-5103

Rosalie Sorrels

* When and where: 8 p.m. today, Swallow Hill Music Hall, 71 E. Yale Ave.

* Cost: $22 to $28

* Information: swallowhill music.org, 303-777-1003

* Of note: For more about Bruce "Utah" Phillips, visit utahphillips.org.

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