I’m having a little Phil Ochs phase this week. Doing an interview with RNR magazine about my Phil Ochs book has sparked me off.
Yesterday I played All The News That’s Fit To Sing – his debut album – today I’ve moved on to A Toast To Those Who Are Gone. That seems appropriate. I propose a toast to the great Phil Ochs.
A Toast To Those Who Are Gone is an album of demos recorded between the end of his Elektra contract and the new A&M one. Although they are demos they sound good to me. They are very much in the same mold as his other Elektra recordings – civil rights takes centre stage but workers’ rights and unions also feature.
I’ll Be There is a favourite of mine.
All songs by Phil Ochs.
- “Do What I Have to Do” – 2:36
- “The Ballad of Billie Sol” – 2:24
- “Colored Town” – 3:00
- “A.M.A. Song” – 2:17
- “William Moore” – 3:07
- “Paul Crump” – 3:34
- “Going Down To Mississippi” – 3:04
- “I’ll Be There” – 2:10
- “Ballad of Oxford (Jimmy Meredith)” – 2:51
- “No Christmas in Kentucky” – 3:04
- “A Toast to Those Who Are Gone” – 3:31
- “I’m Tired” – 2:20
- “City Boy” – 1:58
- “Song of My Returning” – 5:17
- “The Trial” – 2:44
- Bonus track on CD only
