Singer, songwriter, activist
Phil Ochs
Phil Ochs was a man of apparent ironies and contradictions.
To many, he was radically un-American; his left-wing politics inspired death
threats and an F.B.I, file 410 pages long.
Yet, he was a patriot, a man who John Poses
of Spin described as "the uncompromising patriot, the rebel with
causes," who loved the U.S. and was determined to see that it live up to
the ideals upon which it was founded.
He admired John F. Kennedy and quintessentially American
actor John Wayne, but also Fidel Castro and Latin American revolutionary leader
Che Guevara. Throughout the sixties he feared his dedication to left-wing
politics would get him killed; but in the end, it was he who killed himself.
Ochs was arguably the greatest of the sixties protest
singer-songwriters.
Leon Wieseltier of the Washingtonian stated that
"it was he who was the most brilliant and serious and moving and
funny singer of the '60s, the movement's most intelligent contribution to
American popular music."
At root an activist and journalist, he lived by the words of
union organizer and songwriter Joe Hill, who said "a pamphlet, no matter
how good, is never read more than once, but a song is learned by heart and is
repeated over and over."
According to Wieseltier, Ochs, "was never, in his
criticism of the United States ,
uninformed or unsophisticated." He studied papers and journals and was
committed to communicating what he learned, and righting the injustices he saw.
In the words of Spin's Poses, he was "an astute, acerbic
journalist who knew rhythmically and lyrically how to couch his sarcastic wit
in meter." Nonetheless, Ochs was not simply a singing journalist; he was
capable of writing beautiful, lyrical songs, combining, in Rolling
Stone's words "a poet's soul with the gutsy bravado and knife-point
writing of a seasoned press hound."
British folk musician and political activist Billy Bragg has
said, "America
has yet to produce another songwriter like him."
Discovered Folk Music in College
Ochs's upbringing in New York
and Ohio was rocky. His doctor
father suffered from manic depression. In and out of hospitals, Jacob Ochs was
unable to maintain a medical practice. Ochs was a particularly dreamy child who
often appeared to be in another world; his favorite escape was the movies. As a
teenager he attended Staunton Military
Academy in Virginia , an unusual place for a future leader of an
antiwar movement.
In The
Encyclopedia of Folk, Country and Western Music, Ochs's brother, Michael,
told Irwin Stambler that Phil "probably decided to go [to Staunton]
because of the way the movies portrayed military schools and an identification
with John Wayne."
During high school Ochs took up the clarinet and
his teachers discovered he was an exceptional musician. It wasn't until he
attended Ohio State
University , however, that he became
interested in folk music and started writing songs. Ochs's roommate, Jim
Glover, who introduced him to folk music, taught him to play guitar, and
actually gave him his first guitar after losing a bet on the Kennedy-Nixon
election of 1960.
It was also as a student that Ochs became
interested in journalism. According to Rolling Stone, after two years in
college he was jailed in Florida
for vagrancy; the experience motivated him to become a writer. Upon his return
to Ohio State ,
he started publishing a radical newspaper and soon found himself in line for the
editorship of the school's publication, The Lantern.
School authorities eventually blocked him from taking that
post, however, probably the result of his statement that communist Cuban leader
Fidel Castro was the greatest figure in the Western Hemisphere
in the twentieth century. Michael Ochs told Stambler that disappointment over
this rejection prompted Ochs to quit school a few months before graduation.
Instead of obtaining his degree, Ochs formed a duo with
roommate Glover and began playing bars in Cleveland .
In 1961 he moved to New York City ,
landing in the middle of the thriving Greenwich Village
folk scene. He began writing protest songs in the company of some of folk
music's greats ob Dylan, Joan Baez, Tom Paxton, and Dave Van Ronk.
Ochs and Dylan shared a close but volatile personal and
professional relationship in the early 1960s. Clearly, Dylan was the star of
the folk scene, but most agree that Ochs ran a close second.
Ochs began to draw widespread attention when he performed in
Rhode Island at the Newport Folk
Festival in 1963.
Elektra records signed him, and in 1964 released his debut
album, All the News That's Fit to
Sing, its title reflecting Ochs's brand of journalism. When it was
re-released in 1987, Sing Out! magazine
called the album "clearly one of the most important debuts of the 'folk
boom'" and Rolling Stone described it as "a manifesto of
social urgency; Ochs sounds the alarm in a strident clarion voice with acidic
humor, noble rage and at times, priestly tenderness."
Ochs followed All
the News with I Ain't
Marchin' Anymore, which introduced on vinyl some of his most popular
songs, including "Here's to the
State of Mississippi," "Draft Dodger Rag," and the title cut
- the anthem of the period, according to the Penguin Encyclopedia of
Popular Music. This second album, according to Rolling
Stone "firmly established Ochs as the leading protest
singer/songwriter."
By this time Dylan had moved away from protest music and had
begun to alienate many in folk circles; Sing Out! proclaimed that the
crown had been passed to Ochs.
Ochs's third album, Phil Ochs in Concert, put him
on the Billboard charts; Joan Baez's recording of one of its songs,
"There But for Fortune," was also a hit.
As Ochs's talent began to mature, he added some personal
subjects to his songs.
"Musically," read the liner notes to The War
is Over," this entailed a greater emphasis on melody and arrangement.
Lyrically, it meant that Ochs was striving for something deeper than making a
point."
Dedicated to Antiwar Movement
During this time, and throughout the sixties, Ochs was
deeply involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement. He played rallies, often for
free, and expressed his objections to the combat in Southeast Asia
at folk festivals across North America . His outspoken
politics across the board won him more than a handful of enemies; he alienated
much of the South with civil-rights songs like "Talking Birmingham
Jam," and "Here's to the State of Mississippi ."
Because of his views, according to Melody
Maker, Ochs was banned from performing on television or radio in the United
States for several years. Ironically, the
folksinger was even attacked by one of his heroes, John Wayne. As recalled
by Spin's Poses, Wayne
told Playboy that he made his film The Green Berets"to
counteract the lies that Phil Ochs and Joan Baez were spreading."
Nonetheless, Ochs considered this the high point
of his career: John Wayne actually knew who he was!
For the Record. . .
Born Philip David Ochs, December 19,1940, in El Paso, TX;
died by suicide, April 9, 1976, in Far Rockaway, NY; son of Jacob (a physician)
and Gertrude (Phin) Ochs; married Alice Skinner, 1963 (separated); children:
Meegan. Education: Attended Staunton Military Academy ,
VA , and Ohio State University, 1958-1961.
Singer, songwriter, and activist Performed solo, and with
Jim Glover as the Sundowners, Cleveland, OH, 1961; played folk clubs in New
York City, early 1960s; signed by Elektra, released first album, All the News That's FA to Sing, 1964;
switched to A&M label, 1967; played concerts, festivals, and political
rallies, 1960s; released last studio album, Greatest Hits, 1967; last live album, Gunfighter at Carnegie
Hall, released only in Canada, 1974; performed occasionally in the 1970s,
traveling throughout Chile, Australia, and Africa ;Wrote for the Los
Angeles Free Press; organized benefit concerts.
As radical as Ochs was, he was not blind to the problems and
hypocrisy of the Left. Many of the songs he wrote in the late sixties ‘Love Me, I'm a Liberal," "Outside
of a Small Circle of
Friends, ‘ and "Flower Lady" hide and even indict many of those in
his own camp. As that decade wore on, Ochs became increasingly disillusioned
with American society. His popularity began to wane. Michael Ochs and Billy
Bragg cite the tumultuous Democratic National Convention, held in Chicago
in 1968, as the primary catalyst of Ochs's decline.
"Something inside Phil died in Chicago
in 1968. He'd witnessed the country he loved devouring its own children and
realized that the U.S.A.
was no place for heroes," wrote Bragg in the liner notes to Ochs's record There & Now: Live in Vancouver,
1968. Ochs's optimism began to fail and his recordings reflected a growing
bitterness. He recorded his last studio album in 1970. As the times changed, Ochs
had trouble adapting; his friend David Blue told Rolling Stone that "Phil
was totally a child of the Sixties. He was a political animal and that
political energy was his only source. When that started to go, he started to
wither."
The 1970s were hard on Ochs; his creativity began to dry up
and he turned to alcohol. In 1970 he recorded a performance at New
York 's Carnegie hall that is remembered for a bomb
scare and a jeering audience shouting "Phil Ochs is dead." Ochs told
Tom Nolan in Rolling Stone that he thought it was great. "You
can hear the whole audience thing, at first they're booing me, then I win them
over and they come around, at the end they're cheering." His record labely
this time A&M however, was not so pleased. At first it would not release
the album, and then did so only in Canada ,
and not until 1974.
Lost Confidence in Talent
As musicians turned introspective in the seventies, Ochs was
not able to follow suit; he lost confidence and inspiration. His brother told
Poses that Ochs "never developed his personal stuff. He always thought of
the greater good and never thought about himself.
Frankly, he never grew emotionally; he wasn't equipped to
deal with the ‘me’ generation. It wasn't part of his psyche." Ochs stopped
writing and sank deeper into drinking and depression, producing one single in
the seventies, a rewrite of "Here's
to the State of Mississippi " entitled "Here's to the State of Richard Nixon ."
Still, Ochs did not lose his dedication to the causes of
freedom and justice. He wrote for the Los Angeles Free Press and
organized benefit concerts. He also tried to take his message to different
parts of the world, touring Chile ,
Australia , and Africa .
In Kenya
tragedy struck: Ochs was mugged and almost strangled to death. His vocal chords
were damaged beyond repair. Already unable to write, he was then barely able to
sing.
In 1975 Ochs appeared at a rally in New
York 's Central Park that
celebrated the end of the Vietnam War. He performed "The War Is
Over." To Chet Flippo of Rolling Stone, it was clear that Ochs's
career was also over: "Reality had finally caught up with his ten-year-old
song and it was pathetically clear that antiwar songs and singers were relics
from the past. Ochs went downhill fast after that." Suffering, as his father
had, from manic depression, he continued drinking and drifting, staying with
friends in cheap hotels and even on the street. He started calling himself John
Butler Train, and according to Flippo, as Train was charged with assaulting a
woman friend and arrested for drunkenness. Ochs eventually went to stay with
his sister in Far Rockaway, New York .
It was there that he hanged himself, on April
9, 1976 . Three months later, a sell-out crowd of 4,500 filled Madison
Square Garden 's
Felt Forum in New York City for a
six-and-a-half-hour tribute concert in Ochs's memory.
Fortunately for younger generations, Ochs's music did not
die with him. He has continued to influence musicians, especially folk singers.
The folk music renaissance of the late 1980s brought a resurgence in his
popularity; a handful of record companies re-released some of Ochs's albums and
produced new compilations. In reference to the new releases, Sing
Out¡'s Mark Moss affirmed that "much of the material, though over two
decades old, speaks just as loudly and truly as when it was first
recorded."
The Washingtonian's Wieseltier agreed: "These
songs sound strong today because they had the strength of the particular.
Nothing gauzy here, nothing pompous, nothing metaphysical, nothing for the ages,
nothing general. Only a natural bard with a devotion to the affairs of the day,
a poet of political details."
Selected discography
Singles
"The Bells," Elektra, 1964.
"The Power and the Glory," Elektra, 1964.
"Draft Dodger Rag," Elektra, 1965.
"Here's to the State of Mississippi ,"
Elektra, 1965.
"I Ain't Marchin' Anymore," Elektra, 1965.
"In the Heat of the Summer," Elektra, 1965.
"There But for Fortune," Elektra, 1965.
"Canons of Christianity," Elektra, 1966.
"The Ringing of Revolution," Elektra, 1966.
"Santo Domingo ,"
Elektra, 1966.
"Crucifixion," A&M, 1967.
"Miranda," A&M, 1967.
"The Party," A&M, 1967.
"Outside of a Small Circle
of Friends," A&M, 1967.
"Joe Hill," A&M, 1968.
"The War Is Over," A&M, 1968.
"When in Rome ,"
A&M, 1968.
"My Life," A&M, 1969.
"Where Were You in Chicago ,"
A&M, 1969.
"Here's to the State of Richard
Nixon ," A&M, 1974.
Albums
All the News That's Fit to Sing, Elektra, 1964.
I Ain't Marchin' Anymore (includes "Draft Dodger
Rag," "Talking Birmingham
Jam," and "Here's to the State of Mississippi "),
Elektra, 1964.
Phil Ochs in Concert (includes "There But for
Fortune" and "Love Me, I'm a Liberal"), Elektra, 1966.
Pleasures of the Harbor (includes "Flower
Lady" and "Outside of a Small Circle
of Friends"), A&M, 1967.
Tape From California (includes "The War Is
Over"), A&M, 1968.
Rehearsals for Retirement, A&M, 1969.
Greatest Hits, A&M, 1970.
Gunfight in Carnegie Hall, A&M, 1971.
Chords of Fame, A&M, 1976.
A Toast to Those Who Are Gone, (songs recorded
before 1964), Rhino, 1986.
The War is Over: The Best of Phil Ochs, A&M, 1988.
The Broadside Tapes I, Smithsonian Folkways, 1989.
There But for Fortune, Elektra, 1989.
There & Now: Live in Vancouver ,
1968, Rhino, 1990.
Sources
Books
Eliot, Marc, Deaf/7 of a Rebel, Anchor Press,
1979.
The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music, edited by
Donald Clarke, Viking, 1989.
Stambler, Irwin, and Grelun Landon, The Encyclopedia of
Folk, Country and Western Music, St. Martin's Press, 1983.
Periodicals
Crawdaddy, July 1976.
Melody Maker, April
17, 1976 .
Rolling Stone, May
27,1971 ; May 20,1976 ;
July 15,1976 ; March 12, 1987 .
Sing Out!, Spring 1976; Spring 1987.
Spin, April 1991.
Washingtonian, July 1989.
Other sources include album liner notes to The War is
Over and There & Now: Live in Vancouver ,
1968.
Megan Rubiner
Source: Contemporary Musicians, ©2006 Gale Cengage.
Good review, Bill. Just one little mistake and wiki did the same. It was the summer of 62 that I moved to NYC and moved in with Jean Ray and began our duo. So Phil came some months later. A meaningful coincidence is the Oswald's came from Russia to NYC around the same time as I did. If anyone comes across Joe Pesci, ask him if he remembers me asking him about getting a gig at the Peppermint Lounge where he was working that summer of 62. I said to him my Grandma told me to ask her cousin, Big Saul, if I could play there. Joe looked puzzled and made a phone call and came back to the room on the 2nd floor over the Lounge and said "somebody is setting you up". I thought oh no not again! and Joe said, "Go down to the village, that's were all the folk singers play" Well, thank you Joe for getting me in the right direction... downtown and the set-up continued. Nothing like a heads up.
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