Your Joe Hill playlist for Labor Day in Salt Lake City

In Utah's labor history, one figure gained immortality in story and song: the Wobbly martyr Joe Hill.

• The laborer-turned-troubadour was executed by firing squad at the old Sugar House prison in 1915, but his music and poetry live on.

Catch up quick: Joe Hill was a miner and organizer with the International Workers of the World — a.k.a. the "Wobblies" — when police arrested him in 1914 after a grocery store shoot-out that left the owner dead.

• The circumstantial case against Hill was fairly strong: He also was shot that night, and he more or less matched witness descriptions of the killer.
• Yes, but: There was some forensic evidence in Hill's favor and signs of bias during his trial.

The intrigue: After Hill was convicted and sentenced to die, pleas for clemency poured into Utah from union leaders, the Swedish embassy, Helen Keller and even President Woodrow Wilson.

• His attorneys argued he was targeted because of his union leadership and fame as a writer of protest songs.

What happened: Hill became a cause célèbre for the early 20th-century labor movement.

• His songs — and songs about him — are widely performed to this day.

The latest: We've compiled a playlist of Joe Hill songs for your Labor Day enjoyment.

• You can listen on Spotify.

Of note: Hill coined the term "pie in the sky" in the song "The Preacher and the Slave."

ICYMI: Check out our recent Old News series to learn more about Utah's surprisingly prominent role in the labor movement.

• How Utah media spun an anti-union brawl
• Xenophobic union-busting in the Big Coal Strike
• Self-defeating racism in the early labor movement