Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song extract
New York and Early Forays
Having arrived in New York Phil started to hustle. His first paid job was opening for John Hammond Jr. and he soon built up a reputation for himself, getting work at a number of the burgeoning folk clubs like Sam Hood’s The Gaslight and The Third Side.
The strength of his songwriting was soon noticed. Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen ran a magazine that specialised in printing the song lyrics of socially motivated folk singers. They regularly printed songs by the likes of Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger. They also recorded demos of these songs in their offices in order to transcribe the lyrics. Bob Dylan, under the name Blind Boy Grunt, recorded for them.
Phil knew he was on the way when he was invited to contribute. His songs began to appear in Broadside. An ambitious Phil, always eager to deliver to an enthusiastic audience, and eager for publicity, would drop in to the offices regularly to share his latest song and lay down a demo. Those demos would later come out on a couple of CDs. Phil said in a Broadside interview that ‘every newspaper headline is a potential song.’ He thought that songs should say something or they were useless. ‘It never ceases to amaze me how the American people allow the hit parade to hit them over the head with a parade of song after meaningless song about love.’ Broadside agreed.
The other important outcome of this validation was that Phil was invited to perform at the prestigious 1963 Newport Folk Festival and that brought him to the attention of an even wider audience.
The two biggest labels in the folk sphere were Elektra and Vanguard. By 1964 the folk scene had, following the success of Bob Dylan, taken off to extraordinary heights. Folk singers were flavour of the month and in great demand.
In 1961 Vanguard had put together an album called New Folks that was intended to highlight a number of up and coming folk singers. It included The Greenbriar Boys, Jackie Washington, Hedy West and David Gude.
By 1964 folk music had changed beyond all recognition and Vanguard decided to put out a second volume. These four artists selected demonstrated how much things had changed in such a short while. The second album featured more broody topical songwriters and Phil led the pack.
Before that, however, there was a slight aberration.
I must admit I went into this film with a great deal of apprehension. My experience of these rock music biopics is that the truth is bent to create more drama. Drama always seems to ace reality. They pay lip-service to the truth.
I find that annoying. I feel that a biopic should be a historical document as much as a dramatic invention. In my view it should be possible to create a drama without distorting the facts.
Being a big Phil Ochs fan, and having read the reviews, I was apprehensive. Having recently completed books in the On Track: Every Album, Every Song series on both Bob Dylan’s 1960s albums and Phil Ochs, I was well conversant with every aspect of both Bob and Phil’s lives. I was prepared for disappointment.
I was very pleasantly surprised. I loved the film. I thought the acting of Timothée Chalamet was outstanding. He captured both the early Dylan (even to the fluttering eyelashes) and the later polka-dotted pent-up rebel, perfectly. The atmosphere and feel of the film felt authentic.
As one might expect there was a lot of poetic licence regarding events. The characterisation of Woody, Pete Seeger and Suze was rather two-dimensional and drained of complexity. I loved the Joan character (and her voice) and thought that Albert Grossman was spot on. Probably could not expect much more in the time given – it was already 2.30 hours.
The early years between 1961 and 1964 were glossed over. I reckon they had the idea of culminating in the electrification at Newport and that guided everything. That dramatic device was a little muddied. They combined the Newport set with the Manchester gig for more dramatic impact. But I could well cope with that.
They bigged up the Johnny Cash and downplayed many other important characters – Dave Van Ronk, Phil Ochs, Peter La Farge, Buffy St Marie, Tom Paxton , David Blue and Richard Farina come to mind. There was a whole community of important characters.
The film was what it was. It told a story very effectively. I was very pleasantly surprised. As a historical document it was much better than most. As a drama it was superb.
I left thinking that there was another movie there that could have been told in more depth. That movie would have focussed in more detail on the 1961-1963 period. That would have featured the Phil Ochs relationship, Dave Van Ronk and the whole New York club scene – the blues guys, old folkies, new contemporary folkies, Irish singers, the folk groups – the intrigue, competition, rivalry, card games, drinking, smoking, sex and relationships. But that’s a whole different film.
It’s interesting to see the new interest in Bob Dylan’s film ‘The Complete Unknown’. It’s about that sixties period in Greenwich Village; a time when Bob and Phil were best mates, hanging out for meals with Suze and Alice. Phil should have been a dominant character in the film, friends and rivals.
Excerpt – Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song Paperback
The seeds were sown and began to germinate and blossom at an alarming rate. Phil and Jim would sit up all night playing music, listening to music and debating music and politics.
Phil read avidly, absorbing the essence of socialism, started organising protests against the ROTC (college Reserve Officers Training Corps) and writing radical articles that were banned from the college magazine. Frustrated at not being able to get his articles published he started his own underground magazine called ‘The Word’.
It wasn’t long before the politics and music merged together. He formed a singing partnership with Jim and played the local folk clubs first as ‘The Singing Socialists’ and then ‘The Sundowners’. Phil had discovered his new passion. He took his music seriously, declaring: ‘music had to be relevant.’
Just before they were due to perform at their first professional gig they split up. Jim left for New York with his mind set on becoming a professional folk singer. Phil stayed on and continued playing and writing songs. In 1961, just three months before graduating, in a fit of pique at being passed over as the editor of the college magazine (not really surprising given the radical nature of his writing), Phil left the course. He returned to stay with his parents in Columbus, Cleveland but continued singing solo in the folk clubs. He’d basically sing anywhere that would have him. Pam Raver, a performer in Columbus has an amusing anecdote from this period: it centers on one of Phil’s early solo shows.
‘One of his first public performances as a solo artist was at the First Unitarian Universalist Church on Weisheimer Road, where he performed for a ladies luncheon,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I found that astounding because you think of him doing more radical, anti-establishment songs. God only knows the songs he performed there.’
While singing in Farragher’s Backroom folk club in Ohio as an opener for established acts he met the folk singer Bob Gibson. Bob had an impact on his songwriting.
The gestation period was over. In 1962 Phil followed his mentor Jim Glover to New York City and, like Bob Dylan the year before, inserted himself into the burgeoning Greenwich Village folk scene.
I’m eager to get to see the new Dylan film ‘The Complete Unknown’ as it covers exactly the period I cover in the book. It’s getting rave reviews. I hope it’s accurate. I always find that these rock biopics take liberties with the truth.
Excerpt – Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track
Bob settled in to life in Minnesota, living hand to mouth, playing the coffee bars where baskets were passed round for change. This was the start of his freewheelin’ days; cadging meals, renting a small apartment, sleeping on friends’ floors, playing music, listening, absorbing and developing fast.
Minnesota wasn’t big enough. He instinctively craved a bigger canvas and had heard that Woody was still alive but suffering from a chronic illness, the dreadful hereditary disease Huntingdon’s Chorea, and holed up in a sanatorium in New Jersey. There was only one place to be, where the remains of the Beat movement had morphed into a vibrant underground folk scene, and that was Greenwich Village in New York but this young man, pretending to be the wild maverick, still had to persuade his father to allow him to drop out and give it a try. His father grudgingly agreed to allow him a year in which to make it.
In 1961, at the age of twenty, still looking like a young kid, a nascent Bob Dylan rolled into town, not on a freight, but having secured a lift in an old Buick. Stepping out into the icy blast of a New York winter Bob had little apart from a bag containing all his possessions and a guitar. He had two major aims. The first was to meet his new idol Woody Guthrie. The second was to break into the thriving new Folk scene. He set about finding a café to play in with a warm place to crash down and get out of the cold. He found it at The Café Wha?. He was allowed to back Fred Neil on harmonica and play the odd set which gave him somewhere to escape the cruel wind while earning a dollar or two and filling his stomach with a greasy burger. The Café Wha? Provided him with a base to learn and grow from.
The Greenwich Village scene was based around a number of small clubs and overrun with a range of musicians all competing for time, money and status. Pretty cutthroat. The musicians ranged from old well-versed blues musicians like John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed, Jesse Fuller and Big Bill Broonzy, seasoned folk singers, Woody Guthrie acolytes, like Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Pete Seeger and Cisco Houston, folk groups like the Bluegrass Boys, Clancy Brothers and the new generation of up-and-coming singers Tom Paxton, Mark Spoeltra, Odetta and Richard Farina. The leading light was Dave Van Ronk, a powerful figure, nicknamed ‘The Mayor’ who presided over the whole scene like a brooding grizzly bear.
No naive middle-class novice was going to stand a chance of breaking through into that environment. Robert Zimmerman from Hibbing morphed into Bob Dylan. He intended to drop the Zimmerman and become Bob Allen, but thought that Dylan sounded better than Allen, so he adapted it – not so much stealing his name from a notorious Welsh poet as simply preferring the sound of Dylan to Allen. Having a new name he set about creating a hard-living mythology – an orphaned past, running away numerous times, life on the road, carnivals, hard times. Bob was constructing a suitable persona and appearance. The black corduroy cap, crumpled shirt, jeans, belt and boots were a carefully choreographed image. There had to be no chink in the armour. From the nasally Woodyesque drawl, to the embroidered back story the whole package had to hang together. Dylan grew into the disguise. What helped was the huge natural talent that Bob was so obviously saturated with.
Excerpt – Bob Dylan Bringing It All Back Home: Rock Classics
Introduction
I can confidently state that Bringing It All Back Home was without doubt one of the most important albums in the entire history of rock music. I will explain why.
Not only was it ground-breaking in the way it fused elements of blues, folk, rock and poetry, but it was also incredibly influential on the sound and writing of the major acts of the time. Without Bob Dylan and the album Bringing It All Back Home there would not have been the later albums of hugely important bands such as the Beatles, Stones or Beach Boys, or, at least, they would not have been as experimental and adventurous. Neither would we have had the incredible bodies of work of major singer-songwriters like Neil Young, Roy Harper or Bruce Springsteen. The sixties underground scene would not have happened with its explosion of styles from psychedelic and heavy metal to prog rock, country and blues, its anti-war and civil rights protest and complex poetic songs. This album changed the face of rock music.
The album came out at a crucial point in time. This was 1965; the midpoint of the sixties, a turning point, and Bob Dylan was the fulcrum on which rock music turned. Before Bringing It All Back Home we had rock, r&b and blues-based beat music (as with the Beatles and Stones) and lyrically more sophisticated folk music. After Bringing It All Back Home we had a new world of possibilities.
Bringing It All Back Home opened up a theatre of opportunity by melding together the two distinctly different genres and in the process creating an entirely unique style of music, a different way of song writing, a different structure to popular music. New sounds, new ideas, new attitude; nothing would ever be the same.
Phil Ochs is a largely forgotten figure today: why should anyone unfamiliar with his work pay attention?
Phil still has a huge cult status amongst his many followers because his music is passionate and enthralling. His lyrics are just as relevant today as they ever were.
Your book suggests that Ochs developed quickly as a songwriter and singer – was he a Greenwich Village prodigy?
Yes, Phil Ochs was a phenomenon at the time, a leading light, second only to Dylan. Back in the early sixties Greenwich Village was a hub, a breeding ground for burgeoning singer-songwriters – full of messianic idealism and nascent energy the scene became a cauldron of creativity. This is where Bob Dylan, Buffy St Marie, Tom Paxton, Judy Collins, Richard Farina, Joan Baez, Tim Hardin, Dave Van Ronk and Fred Neil, amongst others jockeyed with blues greats, the folk old guard and the remnants of the Beat Poets. During those short years Phil’s songwriting blossomed and raged.
Many people will only know Ochs as a footnote in Dylan biographies: what was the relationship between the two aspiring folk singers?
They were fiercely competitive but very close friends. During the early days, Bob and Suze Rotolo used to regularly share meals with Phil and his wife Alice. They had fun – drinking, laughing and showcasing their latest songs, developing and feeding off each other. Later on, they sadly had an unfortunate explosive falling out, due to both their egos, artistic jealousy and the pressures of Dylan’s fame. They partly rebuilt their friendship when Bob appeared at Phil’s Allende Memorial Concert at Carnegie Hall and Phil made an appearance with Bob at Gerde’s Folk City in 1975 on the Rolling Thunder tour.
What do you personally feel are Ochs strongest albums and stand out songs?
I love the full range of Phil’s music. The early acoustic albums, with pared-back productions, all have their highlights, but, for me, the semi-live Phil Ochs In Concert particularly captures the power and beauty of Phil’s early topical songs. His later, poetic, baroque-rock period, includes a series of outstanding performances. I am particularly moved by the poignant emotion of Rehearsals For Retirement which, for me, exemplifies the mood of a disillusioned Phil. My three favourite tracks are Changes – a song about life and death, Police Of The World – highlighting the arrogance and hypocrisy of America as a superpower and Crucifixion – which shines a light on the way we treat our heroes.
Considering pop culture’s love of doomed icons, I’m surprised Ochs has not received more attention – your thoughts?
I’m surprised as well! Phil was an idealist, a man who believed in fairness and equality. He championed civil rights and opposed the unjust Vietnam War. He was consumed by the desire to make the world a better place. His horror at the Chicago riots was an epiphany, a realisation that the demonstrations and posturing of the counterculture were actually counterproductive. Phil was broken by his recognition that America was inherently right-wing. His brand of explicit left-wing proselytising was out of step with the burgeoning right-wing backlash. Bob Dylan had jettisoned his idealism, Phil never did.
Reading your book I sensed that Ochs was a deeply unhappy man who made a real hash of his life. Is this a fair summation?
Only partly. The early days were full of optimism. Phil was a man of deep convictions who only spiralled into despair because he realised that the world was never going to be changed for the better by his songs. It is fair to say that his personal life was a failure. His marriage broke down largely because he had poured so much of himself into his music, was hugely ambitious and torn apart by his lack of success. Following Chicago, Phil felt he was an abject failure, that all he stood for was pointless. He spiralled down into morbid depression, destroying himself with alcohol and finally, in total disillusionment, taking his own life.
Considering how political Ochs was in the 60s, do you think his finest protest songs have relevance today?
Writing the book I had the pleasure of listening to, studying and thinking about every one of Phil’s songs. They sent chills through me. The issues Phil tackled are just as important as ever. The world has lurched to the right. We are still facing wars, inequality and injustice. Phil’s songs were (and are) beacons of hope, rousing clarion calls to action and moral challenges. In these days of Trump and MAGA the voice and words of Phil Ochs are more relevant than ever. Maybe his time is about to come?
Do you see your book as a step towards rekindling interest in Phil Ochs life and music?
It would be wonderful if my book could help rekindle an interest in the genius that is Phil Ochs. I can only hope that finally he will gain the recognition he deserves.
The world has always needed Phil Ochs.
Biography – Opher Goodwin
Opher Goodwin ran the first History of Rock Music in the country. He enjoys music that is relevant, stimulating and loud. He has written many books including 8 for Sonicbond. What can be better than writing about your heroes?
Opher lives in Yorkshire with his wife Liz. He enjoys good gigs, reading, writing, travelling, teaching and sharing a glass of red wine with friends. Idealistic, unrealistic and obsessive, he likes to write about real issues in a thought provoking manner and doesn’t hold back. His work is controversial and on the edge. That’s just how he likes it.
Another excerpt from Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song
It was while at Ohio that the final link in the chain was established. It was here that he met the guy who was going to change his life – Jim Glover. Jim was a left-wing folkie and introduced Phil to the mighty musical tomes of the great Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and the Weavers. He also taught Phil how to play the guitar. Jim used to take him home for meals where Jim’s animated father, Hugh, an avid Marxist, would regale them with stories embroidered with his political views, becoming a substitute father for the entranced Phil.
The seeds were sown and began to germinate and blossom at an alarming rate. Phil and Jim would sit up all night playing music, listening to music and debating music and politics.
Phil read avidly, absorbing the essence of socialism, started organising protests against the ROTC (college Reserve Officers Training Corps) and writing radical articles that were banned from the college magazine. Frustrated at not being able to get his articles published he started his own underground magazine called ‘The Word’.
It wasn’t long before the politics and music merged together. He formed a singing partnership with Jim and played the local folk clubs first as ‘The Singing Socialists’ and then ‘The Sundowners’. Phil had discovered his new passion. He took his music seriously, declaring: ‘music had to be relevant.’
Just before they were due to perform at their first professional gig they split up. Jim left for New York with his mind set on becoming a professional folk singer. Phil stayed on and continued playing and writing songs. In 1961, just three months before graduating, in a fit of pique at being passed over as the editor of the college magazine (not really surprising given the radical nature of his writing), Phil left the course. He returned to stay with his parents in Columbus, Cleveland but continued singing solo in the folk clubs. He’d basically sing anywhere that would have him. Pam Raver, a performer in Columbus has an amusing anecdote from this period: it centers on one of Phil’s early solo shows.
‘One of his first public performances as a solo artist was at the First Unitarian Universalist Church on Weisheimer Road, where he performed for a ladies luncheon,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I found that astounding because you think of him doing more radical, anti-establishment songs. God only knows the songs he performed there.’
While singing in Farragher’s Backroom folk club in Ohio as an opener for established acts he met the folk singer Bob Gibson. Bob had an impact on his songwriting.
The gestation period was over. In 1962 Phil followed his mentor Jim Glover to New York City and, like Bob Dylan the year before, inserted himself into the burgeoning Greenwich Village folk scene.
ere is a list of some of my top Rock Music books (all available in paperback or kindle and some in Hardback):
Phil Ochs – On Track: Every Album, Every Song
Phil Ochs was the ‘The Prince of Protest’ in the sixties. The only real rival to Bob Dylan, he was the archetypal Greenwich Village topical songwriter. Whether protesting the Vietnam War or campaigning for civil rights, workers’ rights and social justice, Phil was always there. Phil was the man to take up causes, write songs, play at rallies and even risk his life. His clear voice and sense of melody, linked with his incisive lyrics, created songs of beauty and power. As his career progressed, with lyrics and music becoming more highly poetic and sophisticated, he still never lost sight of his cause. Towards the end of the sixties he joined with the YIPPIES in protest against the Vietnam War. But idealism became Phil’s downfall. He was an idealist who could see no point in continuing if he was unable to make the world a better place. Phil lost all hope and descended into depression, which, along with excessive alcohol consumption, led to his suicide in 1976. Shortly before he took his life, Phil asked his brother if he thought anyone would listen to his songs in the future. Well here we are; sixty years later, still listening. The songs of Phil Ochs are every bit as relevant as they ever were and they are making the world a better place!
Captain Beefheart On Track: Every Album, Every Song
Captain Beefheart (Don Vliet) was undoubtedly the creator of the most bizarre and wonderful music. A child prodigy sculptor, he applied his artistic approach to music, creating ‘aural sculptures’. He befriended Frank Zappa in High School, collaborating on a teenage rock opera and sci-fi/fantasy film entitled Captain Beefheart vs The Grunt People. It was from this film that Don took his name. Of course, a magic character had to have a magic band.
Roy Harper must be one of Britain’s most undervalued rock musicians and songwriters. For over fifty years he has produced a series of innovative albums of consistently outstanding quality. He puts poetry and social commentary to music in a way that extends the boundaries of rock music. His 22 studio albums 16 live albums, made up of 250 songs, have created a unique body of work. Roy is a musician’s musician.
In Search of Captain Beefheart – A Rock Music Memoir
The sixties raged. I was young, crazy, full of hormones and wanting to snatch life by the balls. There was a life out there for the grabbing and it had to be wrestled into submission. There was a society full of boring amoral crap and a life to be had in the face of the boring, comforting vision of slow death on offer. Rock music vented all that passion. This book is a memoir of a life spent immersed in Rock Music.
Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track (Decades) Out this month!!
Bob Dylan is the magician who sprinkled poetic fairy dust on to the popular music of the early sixties and his songwriting sparked a revolution and changed rock music forever. The diminutive poet/singer claimed he was merely a ‘song and dance man’ but Dylan altered popular music from intellectually bereft teenage rebellion into a serious adult art form worthy of academic study.
Neil Young 1963 to 1970: Every Album, Every Song Out this Autumn!!
In the realm of singer songwriters, few have been as influential as Neil Young, whose music has always been creative and relevant throughout six decades. Neil is a chameleon for whom boundaries of genres do not exist. He has delved into folk, country, r&b, rock ‘n’ roll, grunge, hard rock, electronic and pop and made them his own.
I first met Nick when he was a young child and over the years he has become a close friend. This book illuminates the genius that I feel is Nick Harper and is designed to accompany ‘The Wilderness Years’, a trilogy of vinyl albums. Nick talks candidly about many aspects of his music and career. I include, with Nick’s permission, the lyrics of all the songs featured in the trilogy. There are also many photos dating from his childhood to the present day.
I was in conversation with a good friend who, like me, is a Rock Music fanatic. We have both been everywhere, seen everyone and have had our lives hugely affected by music. However it is not who you have seen but what you failed to catch that you dwell on. I said to him that it would be brilliant if we had a time machine and were able to go back and see all the major events in Rock history; Robert Johnson play in the tavern in Greenwood, Elmore James in Chicago, Elvis Presley in the small theatres, The Beatles in Hamburg, Stones in Richmond, Doors in the Whiskey, Roy Harper at St Pancras Town Hall…………….. and a thousand more. Then I realised that I could.
This charts the progress of Rock Music from its beginnings in Country Blues, Country& Western, R&B and Gospel through to its Post Punk period of 1980. It tells the tale of each genre and lists all the essential tracks. I was there at the beginning and I’m still there at the front! Keep on Rockin’!!
If you like Rock Music you’ll love this! – 195 tributes to Rock Acts of Genius. – Each one a gem of a picture. You’ll find out what makes them so brilliant and a lot more besides! This is the writing of a true passionate obsessive. These are Ophers tributes to Rock geniuses – loving pen-pictures to all the great artists and bands that have graced the screens, airways, our ears, vinyl grooves and electronic digits – (well a lot of them anyway). These tributes make you thrill to all the reasons why they were so great.
This is not your average run through an opinionated list of somebody’s favourite albums. This is much more than that. By the time you get to the end of the book you will be in no doubt as to the type of person who has written this and what their views are. This is Opher at his most extreme and outspoken. He’s been there at the front through thousands of shows, purchased tens of thousands of albums and listened to more music than seems possible to fit into a single life.
Woody stood for equality and freedom, an end to racism and fairness for the working man. He would have been appalled by the rise of the greed and selfishness, the ignorance and racism, of the modern-day MAGA movement. Trump and MAGA, with their hate and arrogance, represent everything that Woody stood against.
Long live Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs and early Dylan!
They wrote songs about injustice. They wrote songs to make the world better! They wrote songs of compassion, empathy and hope!
“I hate a song that makes you think you’re not any good. I hate a song makes you think you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing.
Songs that run you down or songs that poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or your hard traveling.
“I am out to fight those kind of songs to my very last breath of air and my very last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that’ll prove to you that this is your world and that if it’s hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter how hard it’s run you down or rolled over you, no matter what colour, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work.”
I’ve been a fan of Phil Ochs since the sixties. Unfortunately, living in the UK did not provide me with the opportunity to see him live but I bought everything I could lay my hands on and read all the articles and books. He was one of my abiding heroes.
When I was offered the contract to write the book on him and his music I jumped at the chance. I had a wealth of material to draw on from interviews, books, liner notes and a huge number of live performances (with insightful banter). I immersed myself in the man, his life and music.
In the course of the months I spent writing the book I lived Phil Ochs; I listened to every single track the man ever recorded, every demo and live performance. I enjoyed every minute. I uncovered lots of information that I hadn’t known. It felt like I was an explorer discovering a majestic lost city in the midst of a jungle. I’d thought I knew it all but I found out so much more. It was an honour and a privilege.
These were just some of the material I found myself drawing on:
