Extract from the Introduction to Phil Ochs On Track:
Another unusual consequence of his family situation came to the fore in the realm of child-minding. Because of the need to keep the children quiet because of their father’s nerves, Phil’s mother used an unusual method of providing child-minding for Sonny, Phil and his younger brother Michael; instead of paying for baby-sitting she sent them to the cinema. They spent huge amounts of time watching every film going, staying on to sit through film after film, lapping it up. When it wasn’t the cinema it was TV. Phil became an absolute film nut. He knew all the minor actors and collecting anything to do with film, magazines, leaflets, posters. He loved westerns and his big hero was big bad John Wayne, the tough guy who dished it out to the baddies; somehow, not the kind of hero that you naturally associate with a left-wing topical singer-songwriter. He did rectify this later with his love of more rebellious heroes in Marlon Brando and James Dean.
At school Phil had to pick an instrument. He first picked the trumpet but there were too many trumpeters, the same with his second choice – the saxophone. He reluctantly settled for the clarinet and discovered he had a great ability with the instrument. So much so that he became a soloist with the Capital University Conservancy of Music at the age of fifteen.
Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song: Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: 9781789523263: Books