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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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 Paperback
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!
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.
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.’
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. The one person they both agreed was Elvis Presley; he was god.
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.
The seeds were sown and began to germinate and blossom at an alarming rate. They would sit up all night playing music, listening to music and debating music and politics.
Phil started writing radical articles that were banned from the college magazine, so 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.
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 and continued singing 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 show s.
‘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 as an opening act 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.
A more unusual radical left-wing, anti-war folk singer would be hard to imagine. Phil came to the village as a middle-class, Jewish, country and western loving, rock ‘n’ roll loving, devotee of Elvis, Jonny Cash and the all-American hero John Wayne. Hardly the stuff of rebellious, intellectual folk music.
But Phil had absorbed sufficient Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, honed his songwriting and would scour Newsweek for sources of content for what was shortly to become an impressive catalogue of hard-hitting topical songs. Ironically, given Dylan’s later put-down jibe, he called himself ‘A singing journalist’.
