Music to make you think!

Posted on by Opher

I like music that makes you think, music that deals with issues, music that possesses poetic lyrics. As well as a great melody to feed the spirit I like a song to engage the cerebrum.

Music has many uses. It can make you feel good. It can be great to dance to. It can be visceral and energetic. It can by lyrical, wistful and play with the emotions. There’s a different music for different moods.

Phil Ochs hits a number of my needs. While it is not music to dance to it does play with the emotions, it does replenish the spirit, it does please the ear and above all, it does engage the brain. It’s music to get lost in.

A Toast To Those Who Are Gone is a great album. It is made up of demos that he laid down around the time he left Elektra in the 60s and was released in the eighties. The songs are all pared back and raw. They showcase Phil’s excellent voice, great melodies and quality song writing. I love this early style. I find it very moving. I like the sentiments. They are laid bare. Phil says what he feels – an insight into the ills of society – its racism, inequality, unfairness, exploitation and the courage of people who are prepared to stand up for what they know is right. Apart from the brilliant music it’s a lesson in morality for us all to absorb and think about. We take so much for granted. Phil was fighting a battle to make things better by highlighting the wrong and lauding the brave. I find it incredibly inspiring.

‘I’ll Be There’ is a perennial favourite. I also smile to myself. Phil was stating that where-ever there was injustice he would be there, and you know what, he still is.

All songs by Phil Ochs.

  1. “Do What I Have to Do” – 2:36
  2. “The Ballad of Billie Sol” – 2:24
  3. “Colored Town” – 3:00
  4. “A.M.A. Song” – 2:17
  5. “William Moore” – 3:07
  6. “Paul Crump” – 3:34
  7. “Going Down To Mississippi” – 3:04
  8. “I’ll Be There” – 2:10
  9. “Ballad of Oxford (Jimmy Meredith)”  – 2:51
  10. “No Christmas in Kentucky” – 3:04
  11. “A Toast to Those Who Are Gone” – 3:31
  12. “I’m Tired” – 2:20
  13. “City Boy” – 1:58
  14. “Song of My Returning” – 5:17
  15. “The Trial” – 2:44

This old codger is me in my music den clutching a few of my Phil treasures.

Excerpt – Bob Dylan Bringing It All Back Home: Rock Classics – Paperback 

Posted on by Opher

   Bob wasn’t new to rock music. In High School, performing as Robert Zimmerman, his bands were rock bands. Robert Zimmerman was a rocker. He idolised Little Richard. As a teenager, he even appeared in Bobby Vee’s backing group playing piano. One of his earliest songs was an ode to Little Richard. It was only when he left home and moved to Minnesota that he traded his electric guitar in to purchase an acoustic model and came under the thrall of folk music in order to busk in the local clubs. Back in those days, his early muses were Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson and Hank Williams. He absorbed their influences, both musical and lyrical, to create the incarnation that, when he moved to Greenwich Village, became Bob Dylan.

   By the time he arrived in New York as a 19-year-old in the freezing winter of January 1961, he was already performing a range of folk and blues and had begun songwriting. But the love of rock music hadn’t died. His first single, ‘Mixed Up Confusion’, recorded on 14 November 1962, featured a full electric band.

   He wasn’t going to have another shot at rock music until December 1964, when, together with his adventurous record producer Tom Wilson, they had a first attempt at a folk rock fusion. They conspired to overdub a Fats Domino-style piano rock sound onto Bob’s earlier acoustic recording of the traditional folk song ‘House Of The Rising Sun’. Bob wasn’t happy about the result and the track did not see the light of day until much later (finally making an appearance on an interactive CD-ROM in 1995 – Highway 61 Interactive).

   Tom Wilson was enamoured enough with this dubbing experiment to apply it to Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘The Sound Of Silence’, which sparked their career into the stratosphere. Bob, meanwhile, had turned his attention to the sound created by fellow folkie John P. Hammond (son of the great blues folklorist John H. Hammond). John had created an electric blues album featuring three members of Ronnie Hawkin’s backing band – The Hawks. The music was raw, blues-based rock with a folk base. That was the sound that Bob favoured.