Introduction
Phil Ochs was a most unlikely hero of the left. A country boy from Ohio from a middle class Jewish family, brought up in an apolitical environment, attending, by choice, a military academy and a huge fan of the redneck John Wayne. In his late teens he had an awakening. Attending Ohio State University, following an epiphany in a Florida jail, he changed courses to study politics and journalism, became embroiled in the US policies on Cuba and met Jim Glover and his Marxist father. Like a switch had been flicked. His life became a political debate. Seized by idealistic fervour he morphed into a staunch socialist mainstay of the early sixties Greenwich Village folk scene and then a radical leader of the extreme YIPPIE movement. Putting an end to the war in Vietnam and making the world a fairer place became his obsession.
His idealistic bubble burst in the bloody streets of Chicago. Like a sun that burned too bright, his light burned fiercely before, doused in alcoholic fumes and disillusionment, it sputtered, faded and, all too soon was extinguished.
Dylan’s much reported scathing put-down: ‘You’re not a Folk Singer; you’re a journalist’ was far from the truth. Phil was a folk singer, and so much more. He was a singer-songwriter of remarkable skill. He shone the light of his crystal mind on to the issues of the day and illuminated them for everyone to see. His songs, now sixty years old, still resonate down the decades and touch the ears, hearts and consciences of people today. As he himself stated: he did not write protest songs so much as songs of social concern. Those issues are still pertinent and those songs still relevant. Whenever singer songwriters are talked about Phil Ochs has a seat at the top table.
I was fifteen years-old in 1964 when Phil Ochs first came to my attention. Daphne Pescoe was a full-blown, black turtle-neck wearing beatnik Joan Baez obsessive. She was a couple of years older than me and that’s a yawning chasm at that age. She looked incredibly mature and sophisticated with her long dark hair, not unlike a cross between Joan Baez and her sister Mimi Farina. Even so she took me under her wing and did her best to turn me on by playing me early Joan Baez albums on her dansette player. I don’t remember her playing anything other than Joan Baez. We would sit on the floor in her bedroom with our backs to the bed and listen intently to Joan.
Thus it was in 1964 she had purchased the single ‘There But For Fortune’, Baez singing a Phil Ochs number. I remember spending the whole afternoon listening to that one single, fascinated, alternating with the B-side ‘Plaisir D’Amour’. By the end of the afternoon I knew the track inside out and Phil Ochs had made his entrance into my life. He never left. I went out and bought his debut album. I was hooked from the start! Even then, as a young lad, I was a word man, a socialist anti-war equal rights kind of guy, and the energy of those early topical songs knocked me out! Then we had that voice! – a clear, expressive instrument that he deployed in many guises, back then it was used to illustrate causes.
The background to that discovery of Phil Ochs came through a circuitous route involving a lot of friends. They laid the groundwork that opened my mind to the appreciation of all types of music, a facility that enabled me to listen and evaluate for myself. Without that openness I might have brushed it aside. After all, this was the age of the Beatles, Stones and a thousand brilliant new bands.
It went on from there. Phil Ochs was in the mix. He had found his place in the pantheon of my many idols.
The story of Phil Ochs started back in El Paso, Texas, on December 19th 1940, when Phil arrived as an early Christmas present for his father, Jacob ‘Jack’ Ochs, (of Polish descent) Scottish mother Gertrude Phin Ochs and elder sister Sonny (Sonia).