Extract: Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song

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Extract: Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song

   This love of music took him down an even stranger route than anybody knowing him in later life could ever have imagined. At sixteen he did not like the school selected for him and choose a school for himself. He’d seen a poster with a great marching band and decided on that. He was taken with the idea of playing in a marching band. The Staunton Military Academy in rural Virginia hardly seemed the setting for the nurturing of one of the biggest rebels on the planet and avowed anti-war protester. Yet that’s where he went. Not only that but he seemed to love it. He liked the uniform, the regime and discipline and even got into weight-lifting and became more gregarious. Who could imagine?

   In the course of his two years in Staunton (1956-1958) he developed a love of country and western. His heroes were Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb, Johnny Cash and Faron Young. During the latter part rock ‘n’ roll had burst onto the scene and Phil became swept up in that too. He was smitten by Buddy Holly and idolised Elvis Presley. He avidly played the radio alternately tuning into Alan Freed and country and western channels.

   In 1958 he signed up to Ohio State University and arrived wearing a red leather jacket like the one James Dean wore in Rebel Without A Cause. As he had no idea what to major in he took a range of general courses. He’d only been there a short while before deciding that it wasn’t for him. He fled to Florida and was living rough, ending up bust by the police for sleeping on a park bench. While in the police cell Phil apparently had that epiphany. He decided that what he really needed to do was to become a writer and settled on journalism. He promptly went back to Ohio State and changed courses.

   While studying journalism he was listening to rock and pop music and started studying politics with a particular interest in the situation in Cuba with Fidel Castro, Russia and the American government. Politics was quite a departure and eye-opener for Phil. He’d come from a very unreligious and unpolitical background, not used to discussing real issues in depth. He took to politics with zeal and became obsessed like all new acolytes.

   According to his brother Michael, they used to have long debates about music and politics. Phil was still into his country singers and Michael was more into rock ‘n’ roll and rhythm & blues. The one person they both agreed was Elvis Presley; he was god.

Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song: Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: 9781789523263: Books

Extract from Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track

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Extract from Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track

Looking back to the early John Bucklen tapes, recorded in 1958 on a portable reel to reel tape recorder, of a young Robert Zimmerman, seventeen years old, still at school, pounding out his homage to his idol Little Richard, there was no inkling of the folk legend he was shortly to become. He wanted to become a rock star. That teenage Dylan was a rebel, assuming an image based on James Dean and Marlon Brando. He formed a number of loud rock ’n’ roll bands, the Golden Chords and Shadow Blasters being two, in which he pounded the piano oblivious to audience response. In the first of his chameleonic changes he assumed the name and wild persona of Elston Gunnn. Despite his naked enthusiasm the bands didn’t take off, indeed, had nowhere to go, but they did bring him some local notoriety and attract the girls. He was very into girls and rock music was both a magnet and aphrodisiac. A big motivator. This increasing rebelliousness led to fractious relationships with school, the tight-knit Jewish community and his father.

   By the age of eighteen, he’d wrung the little Minnesotan iron ore town of Hibbing dry. He’d learnt the rudiments of guitar and piano, formed a number of bands, and absorbed a huge range of musical styles and traditions from rock ‘n’ roll, r&b to country music and standards – the mainstay of the local radio station, all of which were going to contribute and inform his progressions over the course of the ensuing years. Groundwork was being laid. Bob’s tastes were eclectic – his first musical heroes being Hank Williams and Little Richard.

   Here we have to start to unravel the man from the myth. Robert Zimmerman was already outgrowing the little mining town of Hibbing in Minnesota. As soon as he was able, he looked for a way out of there. A fresh-faced boy, looking younger than his years, not yet needing to shave, set off on the start of his adventure.

Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track (Decades) : Opher Goodwin: Amazon.co.uk: Books

Extract; Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song

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Extract; Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song

   There were a number of factors that helped form Phil’s personality, the pacifism, sense of compassion and. desire for equality and justice.

   The first of these was his father’s health. Jack was a physician, which should have been the basis for a very stable, prosperous family situation. That was far from the case. He had worked for the military in the Second World War and had to treat horrific injuries following the Battle of the Bulge. The experience traumatised him. He was discharged from the army and came back home severely depressed and suffering a debilitating bipolar condition. Despite trying to operate as a local physician he had episodes where he could not function and ended up hospitalised. His regular struggles with mental illness meant that he had to take appointments on the lowest rung in the medical profession – working in TB clinics. Although they were a middle-class family things were not as financially secure as they might have been.

   The effect of his father’s condition on Phil was enormous. The first impact was financial. Due to regular bouts of hospitalisation and inability to work the family was thrown into a degree of poverty. That was going to have unexpected consequences. Secondly, there was the psychologically delicate nature of his father who had to be tip-toed around and was usually very withdrawn, so his mother took on the responsibility of running things. Thirdly, the family moved around a lot chasing new positions for his father whenever his condition improved.

   This resulted in Phil retreating into himself, becoming a daydreamer and making very few friends.

   It also meant that they lived in interesting settings, first in New York, in Queens at Far Rockaway beach, and then Columbus Ohio. Both places left him with deep impressions that came out later in songs.

   Being part of a non-practicing Jewish family also had an effect. Being Jewish provided the insight of an immigrant outside that probably fed into his politics. Phil was obviously affected. As a child he had a thing about his big nose and actually had an operation to reduce its size which had the effect of boosting his confidence.

   Another unusual consequence of his family situation came to the fore in the realm of child-minding.

Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song: Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: 9781789523263: Books

Excerpt from – Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track (Decades) – Paperback

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  Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track (Decades) Paperback

Life for a musician was cutthroat. Most fell by the wayside. Talent was not the only criterion necessary. Having the correct image, credentials, friends, disposition, drive and luck were also a necessity. What Robert Allan Zimmerman lacked he created for himself out of thin air.

   Looking back to the early John Bucklen tapes, recorded in 1958 on a portable reel to reel tape recorder, of a young Robert Zimmerman, seventeen years old, still at school pounding out his homage to his idol Little Richard, there was no inkling of the folk legend he was shortly to become. He wanted to become a rock star. That teenage Dylan was a rebel, assuming an image based on James Dean and Marlon Brando. He formed a number of loud rock ’n’ roll bands, the Golden Chords and Shadow Blasters being two, in which he pounded the piano oblivious to audience response. In the first of his chameleonic changes he assumed the name and wild persona of Elston Gunnn. Despite the enthusiasm the bands didn’t take off, indeed, had nowhere to go, but they did bring him some local notoriety and attract the girls. This increasing rebellious led to increasing fractious relationships with school, the tight-knit Jewish community and his father.

   By the age of eighteen, he’d wrung the little Minnesotan iron ore town of Hibbing dry. He’d learnt the rudiments of guitar and piano, formed a number of bands, and absorbed a huge range of musical styles and traditions from rock ‘n’ roll, r&b to country music and standards – the mainstay of the local radio station, all of which were going to contribute and inform his progressions over the course of the ensuing years. Groundwork was being laid. His first musical heroes being Hank Williams and Little Richard.

   Here we have to start to unravel the man from the myth. Robert Zimmerman was already outgrowing the little mining town of Hibbing in Minnesota. As soon as he was able, he looked for a way out of there. A fresh-faced boy, looking younger than his years, not yet needing to shave, set off on the start of his adventure.

   He did not exactly run away from home as seek out an excuse to leave. No, he hadn’t already run away from home seven times (at the age of 10, 12, 13, 15, 15 and a half, 17 and 18). No, he hadn’t spent six years with a travelling carnival. No, he hadn’t ridden the freights as a hobo from Gallop New Mexico to New Orleans. No, he wasn’t an orphan. It was all much less colourful than that. He’d been brought up in a Jewish family with a middle-class upbringing and led rather an uneventful life in a small town. But he was obsessed with music and determined to have a life in music. It was all he cared about. He had managed to secure a gig or three backing Bobby Vee on the piano when he’d appeared in the local area. That must have been a real buzz for a young kid. In 1959, looking for a way of getting into the music business, he persuaded his mother to help him out. Using a course at Minnesota University as an excuse to leave he gained the help of his mother (his relationship with his more conservative father being difficult). She arranged for him to go to Minnesota by organising with his cousin Chucky to put him up. Chucky sorted him a room in the frat house at the university where he could stay for free in the summer. Not exactly as exciting as riding freights and touring with carnivals, but it did set him on the road. On arriving on the greyhound bus he immediately swapped his electric guitar for an acoustic Martin Double O so that he could set about playing in the local coffee houses. It was the start. What he did next was to seek out like-minded people, hang out with musicians, and have the time to develop, learn and evolve. The liberal arts course at the University of Minnesota was not scintillating enough. Bob focussed more on his music, staying up late to play, listen, drink and party. For the young Robert girls, dope and booze were more interesting than study and he soon dropped out.

Bob Dylan 1962 to 1970 On Track (Decades) Paperback

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Introduction  

I was fortunate to be introduced to Bob Dylan’s music at the young age of thirteen, though I did not fully appreciate that at the time.

    A good friend of mine by the name of Charlie Mutton had purchased Bob’s debut album shortly after it was released and he was smitten. That was peculiar. Up to that time we had been listening to chart material and old rock ‘n’ roll.  Heaven knows where Mutt picked up on Dylan’s first album. I don’t remember it being either popular or available in my neck of the woods. We weren’t big on ‘folk’ music. However, my ears weren’t tuned in to the raw, nasally sound of Bob’s folk-blues and, although I listened all the way through and even appreciated a number of the tracks, I was not greatly impressed. Mutt was more clued up and assured me that Dylan was going to be huge and if he’d only release a single it would be a top ten hit. I remained quietly sceptical.

   Mutt was incredibly prophetic. Subsequent albums and the ‘Times They Are A Changin’’ single did just as he had predicted. Bob Dylan went on to become one of the most important figures in the history of rock music. Not only did he change the face of rock music but he also had a profound effect on the direction of youth culture. Once I’d ‘got it’, and my ears became more accustomed, I too was utterly smitten.

   As with Dylan I was caught up in the zeitgeist of the time. These were the days of great divisions in society, a rising rebellious youth, the threat of instant annihilation from nuclear war, great changes in attitudes. The traumas of the second world war were still fresh but the economy and world were opening up. Change was in the air. Our parents represented something we did not want to be. Bob was riding that wave of change.

   The 1950s Beats may have cracked the façade of the rigid conformity and strict hypocritical morality of the prevailing post-war 1950s culture. Rock ‘n’ roll and r&b may have liberated youth into a temporary hedonistic frenzy, but it was the 1960s generation who blew the whole structure to smithereens. Peculiarly, Robert Zimmerman found himself, sometimes unwillingly, right at the forefront of those shifts in the tectonic plates of society. Who could have predicted that?

   Who could have known that this young middle-class Jewish kid from a decaying nondescript town in the middle of nowhere would create a persona and develop the skills to take the whole world by storm?

   That young Dylan was a chameleon, a sponge, a mirror, a driven force, who was searching for identity, acceptance and fame. He absorbed everything around him with an unquenchable thirst, then reflected it back a hundred times brighter. He took on his surroundings and magnified them.

   For that young Dylan integrity was all that counted. Authenticity and cool were the only things that were important. Robert Zimmerman was an empty vessel into which he poured the ingredients that created Bob Dylan. That early incarnation was a wild vortex of possibility. He created a persona and mythology on which to hang the brilliance of his craft.

   Everything about Bob Dylan was false, a construct, apart from his natural talent. His persona was nothing more than a vehicle to transport him to where he wanted to go.

   Young Bob Dylan was ruthless. He drained everyone around him dry, wringing out their songs, their chords, their tunes, friendships and love. I’m not implying that this was intentional or in any way mean, merely necessary. In order to get to where he needed to be he had to grow, blossom and change. Nothing was more important. Bob was helplessly riding a tsunami that he himself created. At times, for the people involved – Suze Rotolo, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, Martin Carthy and Dave Van Ronk, to name a few – it must have felt as if they were being used and abused.

   That young Dylan (Robert Allen Zimmerman) was on a roller-coaster that kept changing tracks. Seemingly, he had no compunctions about leaving people and whole movements behind. Parents, lovers, friends and fellow musicians bit the dust. He moved on when the need arose, without scruples and ne’er a backward glance. The chameleon had to grow and move. That was his nature, all he knew.

   The biographies are numerous, the details mauled over, magnified, twisted, sensationalised and made to fit the required template. Hard to disentangle reality from myth. There lived a legend largely generated by Bob himself in his quest to create credibility and breakthrough.

Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song Paperback – Now Available!

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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.

Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song: paperback: Opher Goodwin – Out TODAY!!

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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!

Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song: Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: 9781789523263: Books

Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song – Paperback  – 2 Days To Go!! Out on the 18th.

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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!

Phil Ochs Book -Advance copies available – due out on 18th Oct!.

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I have just received an advanced batch of Phil Ochs books. If anybody would like a signed copy please message me or say in the comments,

Or it can be ordered through your local Amazon:

Or direct from the Publisher Sonicbond press at Burning Shed (from the 18th):

https://burningshed.com/index.php?route=product/search&filter_name=opher%20goodwin&filter_sub_category=true

Phil Ochs book out in 5 Days!!

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FIVE days to go! Place your advance order now!

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!