Excerpt from Phil Ochs On Track: Every Album, Every Song Paperback 

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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.

   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.

Phil Ochs – On Track – excerpt

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   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. 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.

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

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Introduction

Phil Ochs was a most unlikely hero of the left. A country boy from Ohio from a middle class Jewish family, brought up in an apolitical environment, attending, by choice, a military academy and a huge fan of the redneck John Wayne. In his late teens he had an awakening. Attending Ohio State University, following an epiphany in a Florida jail, he changed courses to study politics and journalism, became embroiled in the US policies on Cuba and met Jim Glover and his Marxist father. Like a switch had been flicked. His life became a political debate. Seized by idealistic fervour he morphed into a staunch socialist mainstay of the early sixties Greenwich Village folk scene and then a radical leader of the extreme YIPPIE movement. Putting an end to the war in Vietnam and making the world a fairer place became his obsession.

   His idealistic bubble burst in the bloody streets of Chicago. Like a sun that burned too bright, his light burned fiercely before, doused in alcoholic fumes and disillusionment, it sputtered, faded and, all too soon was extinguished.

   Dylan’s much reported scathing put-down: ‘You’re not a Folk Singer; you’re a journalist’ was far from the truth. Phil was a folk singer, and so much more. He was a singer-songwriter of remarkable skill. He shone the light of his crystal mind on to the issues of the day and illuminated them for everyone to see. His songs, now sixty years old, still resonate down the decades and touch the ears, hearts and consciences of people today. As he himself stated: he did not write protest songs so much as songs of social concern. Those issues are still pertinent and those songs still relevant. Whenever singer songwriters are talked about Phil Ochs has a seat at the top table.

   I was fifteen years-old in 1964 when Phil Ochs first came to my attention. Daphne Pescoe was a full-blown, black turtle-neck wearing beatnik Joan Baez obsessive. She was a couple of years older than me and that’s a yawning chasm at that age. She looked incredibly mature and sophisticated with her long dark hair, not unlike a cross between Joan Baez and her sister Mimi Farina. Even so she took me under her wing and did her best to turn me on by playing me early Joan Baez albums on her dansette player. I don’t remember her playing anything other than Joan Baez. We would sit on the floor in her bedroom with our backs to the bed and listen intently to Joan.

   Thus it was in 1964 she had purchased the single ‘There But For Fortune’, Baez singing a Phil Ochs number. I remember spending the whole afternoon listening to that one single, fascinated, alternating with the B-side ‘Plaisir D’Amour’. By the end of the afternoon I knew the track inside out and Phil Ochs had made his entrance into my life. He never left. I went out and bought his debut album.  I was hooked from the start! Even then, as a young lad, I was a word man, a socialist anti-war equal rights kind of guy, and the energy of those early topical songs knocked me out! Then we had that voice!  – a clear, expressive instrument that he deployed in many guises, back then it was used to illustrate causes.

   The background to that discovery of Phil Ochs came through a circuitous route involving a lot of friends. They laid the groundwork that opened my mind to the appreciation of all types of music, a facility that enabled me to listen and evaluate for myself. Without that openness I might have brushed it aside. After all, this was the age of the Beatles, Stones and a thousand brilliant new bands.

   It went on from there. Phil Ochs was in the mix. He had found his place in the pantheon of my many idols.

      The story of Phil Ochs started back in El Paso, Texas, on December 19th 1940, when Phil arrived as an early Christmas present for his father, Jacob ‘Jack’ Ochs, (of Polish descent) Scottish mother Gertrude Phin Ochs and elder sister Sonny (Sonia).

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

Phil Ochs speaks to us from long ago!

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‘It’s not enough to be right. It’s not enough to be intelligent. Woodstock could have been roped off and everyone sent to the gas chambers. They will in fact kill you all without a second’s hesitation. Merle Haggard is a man who on the right-wing level has come to terms with Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs and the others. I’ll do a Merle Haggard song, just as he did it. To show you what’s going on the other side of the world.’ – Phil Ochs Carnegie Hall 1968

‘A  lot of people say my songs sound alike. What I’m trying to do is write one endless song called truth. Painting the world exactly how I see it without compromise; always questioning!’ Phil Ochs from ‘The Life of Phil Ochs’ by Michael Schumacher.

Phil foresaw the rise of the right-wing MAGA philosophy right back in the late sixties. It sure wasn’t peace and love. Merle Haggard represented the views of those early rednecks. Phil was trying to wake people up!

What we need right now is a good Protest Singer!! Phil Ochs!

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My book on Phil Ochs is out now – full of protest, antiwar and social comment – all even more relevant in these days of struggle!

The Antidote to Trump!

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If only Phil Ochs was still alive! I know exactly what he would have been singing!!

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!

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My Rock Music Books on Sonicbond Press

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Books available directly from the publisher:

Roy Harper

Captain Beefheart

Bob Dylan (2)

Phil Ochs

Neil Young

Beatles

Leonard Cohen (out next year)

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They are also available from Amazon:

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Thanks for looking!!

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

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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 Paperback – TAKES OFF!!

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Everything you want to know about Phil Ochs and his songs – The voice of Greenwich Village Sixties Protest!

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.