American Masters | Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune | Trailer

Phil Ochs & OWS

A Call to Arms Every Liberal Can Love
TIME
If you're a liberal (as Phil Ochs said, “Get it?”) looking for safe, non-socialist ground from which to argue that America's system for overseeing Wall ...

Phil Ochs Tribute & Benefit Show for Occupy Seattle at Columbia ...
SSG Music
Phil Ochs was a folk singer/songwriter in the 1960′s and 1970′s that was very topical and political with his lyrics. Varying from topics of being a liberal, ...

Justin Timberlake Offered A Starring Role In The Coen Brothers ...
Indie Wire
... '60's Greenwich Village scene, which gave birth to a new wave of artists that included Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Joni Mitchell. ...

Phil Ochs - I'm Tired

Phil Ochs - Flower Lady (live)

Phil Ochs - I Ain't Marchin' Anymore (live)

Bob Dylan's Greenwich Village: Sounds from the Scene in 1961

In early 1961, a 19-year-old Bob Dylan, having dropped out of college at the end of his freshman year, traveled to New York City, ostensibly to visit his idol Woody Guthrie, hospitalized with Huntingdon's Disease. This 2-disc set represents the scene he discovered, the sounds he found 'Blowin' In The Wind' and the artists who were already playing the clubs and bars of the Village upon his arrival. From old timers like Pete Seeger and the Reverend Gary Davis, to the bright young stars of the new wave like Joan Baez, and Phil Ochs.

Disc 1
1. New York City (Pete Seeger)
2. Pretty Boy Floyd (Woody Guthrie)
3. Ramblin' Gamblin' Man (Cisco Houston)
4. When First Unto This Country (New Lost City Ramblers)
5. Little Maggie (Barbara Dane)
6. Crawling King Snake (John Lee Hooker)
7. Howl (Allen Ginsberg)
8. Step It Up and Go (Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee)
9. Pallet On The Floor (Brownie McGhee)
10. Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie (Elizabeth Cotten)
11. Darling Corey (The Weavers)
12. The Bannana Boat Song (the Tarriars)
13. Pretty Polly (Erik Darling)
14. No More Cane On The Brazos (Odetta)
15. Red Wing (Oscar Brand)
16. Jack of Diamonds (Brother John Sellers)
17. Barbara Allen (Ed Mcurdy)
18. Duncan and Brady (Dave Van Ronk)
19. Rio Grande (The Focscle Singers)
20. Who's Gonna Buy You Ribbons (Paul Clayton)
21. The Steve Allen Show (Lenny Bruce)
22. The Flight Of The Bumble Bee (Jose Feliciano)
23. I Ain't Marching Anymore (Phil Ochs)
24. Turn, Turn, Turn (Judy Collins)
25. The Sound of Silence (Art Garfunkel)

Disc 2
1. New York City (Lead Belly)
2. Cocaine (Ramblin Jack Elliott)
3. Buffalo Boy (Theodore Bickel)
4. The Parting Glass (Clancy Brothers)
5. State Of The Nation (Kenneth Patchen)
6. Fixin' To Die (Bukka White)
7. Baby Please Don't Go (Big Joe Williams)
8. You Will Need Me (Lonnie Johnson)
9. The Wagoner's Lad (Kossoy Sisters)
10. Go' Way from My Window (John Jacob Niles)
11. Driving Wheel (Rosevelt Sykes)
12. On The Road (Jack Kerouac)
13. Silver Dagger (Joan Baez)
14. A Wayfaring Stranger (Bob Gibson)
15. Nottamun Town (Jean Ritchie)
16. Death Don't Have No Mercy (Reverend Gary Davis)
17. In My Time Of Dying (Josh White)
18. Uncloudy Day (Staple Singers)
19. Rocks and Gravel (Harry Belafonte)
20. Mojo Hand (Lightnin Hopkins)
21. New York Girls (Kingston Trio)
22. Little Wheel Spin And Spin (Buffy Sainte-Marie)
23. Ramblin' Boy (Tom Paxton)
24. Roll On Buddy (The Greenbriar Boys)
25. If I Had A Hammer (Peter Paul and Mary)

James Dean Biography: Life and Career Documentary (1957 Film)

Phil Ochs - Kansas City Bomber

Phil Ochs Covers: Men Behind the Guns - Andy Brown

Mississippi still burning

Mississippi still burning
The Student Printz
In 1964, Phil Ochs wrote a song he called "Here's to the State of Mississippi." In it, he lamented the presence of the Klan and the refusal of the people of ...

Ochs For Folks
Frost Magazine
by Roy Phillips Phil Ochs was a singer / songwriter in the 60s categorized as `folk' or 'protest' – a contemporary and friend of Bob Dylan. ...

Morello electric on 'Rebel Songs'
Toronto Sun
I didn't want to do a watered down Audioslave as a solo thing, I was really getting deeply into the folk music of the early Dylan, Phil Ochs, Woody Guthrie, ...

New Coen Brothers Movie About '60s Folk Legend Gets Financing, Is Titled ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’
Indie Wire
... Greenwich Village scene in the 1960s that give birth a new wave of artists that included Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Joni Mitchell. ...

Pop Montreal: the full lineup
Hour.ca
Join us for the alternately inspiring and tragic story Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune. Other notable screenings include the Canadian premiere of ...

Tom Morello enlists his wife for Phil Ochs homage on the cover of his latest record
aux
“The cover is an homage to a Phil Ochs' live record, Gunfight at Carnegie Hall,” explains Morello. “The moll on the cover is actually my wife. She was like, 'I'm not ...

Phil Ochs - In the Heat of the Summer

Phil Ochs - The Men Behind the Guns

Phil Ochs in the News

In the beginning, it was the Hootenanny
Philadelphia Inquirer
Name acts in 1965 included Phil Ochs, Mississippi John Hurt, Judy Collins, Tom Rush, and Tom Paxton. That show was the last in Paoli as organizers realized ...

What to see and do at the Philadelphia Folk Festival
Philadelphia Daily News
Tomorrow, the daytime activities start at 11 am and are in high gear an hour later with the "Songs of Phil Ochs" workshop, led by his sister Sonny, ...

Judy Collins to perform in Red Bank
The Star-Ledger - NJ.com
Under the guidance of producer Mark Abramson, who had worked on Phil Ochs' 1966 live album, even the familiar became strange. Bob Dylan's “Just Like Tom ...

Steven Schub as Phil Ochs in The Chicago 8

Phil Ochs in the News

Raging Against the Corporate Media Machine
The Nation
... lead guitarist of Rage Against the Machine, protest-musician and activist, painstakingly parody his newest album cover after Phil Ochs's “Gunfight at ...

Local stars shine at 50th annual folkfest
Montgomery Newspapers
Shay and I agree that John Francis will do very well at the Phil Ochs workshop, which deals with topical songs. John Flynn will be on that panel too. ...

Sonny Ochs To Speak At Avon Theatre
Patch.com
The sister of folksinger Phil Ochs will appear at a screening of a documentary about the late performer's life. On Wednesday, August 17, at 7:30 pm the Avon ...

High-riding hoppers
Bangalore Mirror
“One good song with a message can bring a point more deeply to people than a thousand rallies,” said folk singer Phil Ochs decades ago. ...

Don't Shut 'Em Down: An Interview with Flogging Molly
PopMatters
... of hope and humor amidst the darkest themes, drawing upon the tradition of songwriters such as Phil Ochs, Johnny Cash, Billy Bragg, and Joe Strummer. ...

Phil Ochs - Danny Boy

Phil Ochs' cover of Conway Twitty's "Danny Boy" at the Troubadour Nightclub in Los Angeles, CA on February 1, 1970.

Phil Ochs in the News: Legends of Folk

Video: 'Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune' eyes singer's rise, fall
Evansville Courier & Press
By BRUCE DANCIS / Scripps Howard News Service Phil Ochs didn't just chronicle the civil-rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s in song, he was part of ...

New CDs feature comedy, rock and jazz
Albany Times Union
Phil Ochs' legendary near-hit "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends" was inspired in part by the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese, who was stabbed to death ...

Musical Stars Shine on PBS in August
Technorati
... Don McLean, Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs, The Mamas and the Papas, Jim Kweskin Jug Band, New Lost City Ramblers, Mississippi John Hurt, and Tim Hardin. ...

Rant 'N' Roll: Phil Ochs and Victor Jara
Aquarian Weekly
The other night I saw the Phil Ochs documentary, There But For Fortune, and can't stop thinking about a story Pete Seeger told of Chilean folksinger Victor ...

A young Bob Dylan performs 'Blowin' in the Wind' on 'Legends of Folk.'
New York Daily News
Phil Ochs didn't write "I Ain't A Marchin' Any More" to promote pledge drives. He wrote it to say war isn't the answer, a discussion as relevant today as it ...

Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune
Fairfield County Online
Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune“A stimulating reflection on the American countercultural protest movement examined through the prism of one of its most ...

Phil Ochs Lives! New Film, “There But For Fortune”
Veterans News Now
I believe Phil Ochs to be the most critical artist of the civil rights and peace movement. He was a wounded man who produced a body of work that needs to be ...

Phil Ochs - I Want You, I Need You, I Love You

Phil Ochs' cover of Elvis Presley's "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You" at the Troubadour Nightclub in Los Angeles, CA on February 1, 1970.

Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune Documentary News

'60s folkie Phil Ochs sings again in documentary
Kansas City Star
By BRUCE DANCIS Phil Ochs didn't just chronicle the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s in song, he was part of them. Like Bob Dylan, his friend and idol, Ochs became a spokesman for young people who were both energized by the election of ...

Phil Ochs in Vancouver: an interview with Steve Rodgman
Alienated in Vancouver
I was fortunate to see him live at The Egress, a club now long gone, on Beatty St. in August, 1973...From what I can remember, he was everything I had hoped for. Made some great intros to his songs with comments in between. Funny at times. Good sense of humour. Sang fantastically. Every song got a huge reaction.

Phil Ochs - Maybe Baby (Live 1970)

Phil Ochs' cover of Buddy Holly's "Maybe Baby" recorded live at the Troubadour Nightclub in Los Angeles, CA on February 1, 1970.

Phil Ochs in the News

DVD: 'Limitless,' 'Potiche,' 'Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune,'
Los Angeles Daily News
"Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune" is balanced account of the 1960s folksinger's life. Ochs, who committed suicide at 35 in 1976, was neither...

WORD UP! - Enthralling Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune ...
PAPERMAG
Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune (First Run Features), a fascinating documentary by Kenneth Bowser on the short life of the folk singer/songwriter, is out now on DVD. Ochs, an intensely handsome protest singer who committed suicide in ...

First Run Features Releases Three On DVD
Documentaries.About.com
The titles are: Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune - Lee Bowser's thoroughly researched and brilliantly composed documentary about Phil Ochs not only captures the power of the singer/songwriter's personality, it reveals the social and political strife of ...

Phil Ochs: There But For Forture (Review)
Cincinnati CityBeat
By Steven Rosen Phil Ochs was Bob Dylan's chief rival as a Folk-based protest singer in the 1960s — Christopher Hitchens, interviewed in this documentary, maintains Ochs was better, more politically pointed and with a more sarcastic and ...

Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune tunes to wild '60s folksinger
Straight.com
By Allan MacInnis, July 28, 2011 Kenneth Bowser, director of the praised documentary Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune, is among those fortunate enough to have seen the 1960s folksinger-activist perform twice—he thinks. “As Dennis Hopper used http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifto say ...

RIVERSIDE: 'Phil Ochs' documentary mirrors today
InlandSoCal.com
By TIMOTHY GUY With its theme of history making events defining a generation, the documentary "Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune," strikes a cord with things that are happening in the world today. And in a sad twist of fate, the film also highlights the ...

Phil Ochs - Joe Hill (Live 1965)

Phil Ochs in the News

Top Picks: James Bond reboot, Bill Moyers on faith, Franz Liszt at 200, and more
The Christian Science Monitor
Convinced he would be a folk icon and competing with the likes of Bob Dylan in the political protest song niche, Ochs makes for a fascinating study in 1960s counterculture.

Top 10 Music Managers Who Fucked Over Their Clients
LA Weekly
His other clients included Todd Rundgren, Peter, Paul and Mary, John Lee Hooker, Phil Ochs Gordon Lightfoot, Richie Havens, The Band and Janis Joplin. ...

Album and Singles Reviews: Sisters' tribute to Ochs sings
San Antonio Express
Phil Ochs has been dead for 35 years. A passionate wordsmith and singer who displayed the courage of his convictions by writing and singing songs of peace, ...

New DVD Movie Release: Watch Phil Ochs - There But for Fortune Documentary Film

Do yourself a favor and buy Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune, out today on DVD. It truly is a wonderful film that I cannot recommend highly enough.

Critics' reviews:

"A TERRIFIC documentary. Ochs was an uncompromising artist who believed in the power of music as a tool for social and political change. His songs provide a stirring soundtrack throughout the film."
-David Rooney, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

"EXCELLENT! A strong and forceful documentary, beautiful and melodic as well as pointedly political."
-Kenneth Turan, LOS ANGELES TIMES

"A-! This FINE, deeply researched documentary, filled with commentary from unusual suspects, is at once an unsentimental portrait of the ambitious singer who thought himself bound for glory, and an affecting elegy for a time when song was a form of revolution."
-Lisa Schwarzbaum, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

"An ELECTRIFYING look into the political climate of the 1960s and the ability of certain popular musicians (Ochs, Baez, Seeger, and Bob Dylan) to inspire the people. It's rare to encounter a documentary about a folk musician that is so politically inspiring and musically rich. For those unfamiliar with Ochs and his music, the sheer beauty of his voice can be shocking."
-George Heymont, HUFFINGTON POST

Description:

As our country continues to embroil itself in foreign wars, Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune is a timely and relevant tribute to an unlikely American hero. Over the course of a meteoric music career that spanned two turbulent decades, Phil Ochs sought the bright lights of fame and social justice in equal measure - a contradiction that eventually tore him apart.

From youthful idealism to rage to pessimism, the arch of Ochs' life paralleled that of the times, and the anger, satire and righteous indignation that drove his music also drove him to dark despair. In this brilliantly constructed film, interview and performance footage of Ochs is illuminated by the ruminations of Joan Baez, Tom Hayden, Pete Seeger, Sean Penn, Peter Yarrow, Christopher Hitchens and others.

Phil Ochs - City Boy (Live 1965)

Phil Ochs in the News

Revolution! Is anyone really up for it?
Kings of War
First, get yourself in revolutionary mood with a little Phil Ochs ditty 'Outside of a small circle of friends'. The question is not a frivolous one. ...

'Dangerous Folk' plan Hillside Series visit
Richmond-News
You'll hear the music and songs of Peter, Paul and Mary, The Kingston Trio, Pete Seeger, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, John Denver, Phil Ochs, Woody Guthrie and ...

Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune—Kenneth Bowser’s Powerful Biopic
Westchester Magazine
Though Phil has been honored and lauded by fans and peers in the years since his death, and though songs like “There But for Fortune,” “Cops of the World,” and “Ringing of Revolution” are now timelier and more relivant than ever, it’s doubtful that Phil Ochs will ever receive the widespread acclaim he so longed for—and so richly deserves.

The Story of Phil Ochs

Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune examines the tragic life and lasting legacy of the political folk singer and activist. Linked below is a discussion the film featuring its director Kenneth Bowser and fellow folk singer Kim Harris.

WNYC - Soundcheck

Phil Ochs in the News

Film Review: Bob Dylan Revealed
Crawdaddy! The Magazine of Rock
Ken Bowser's biopic Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune is one, as is Scorsese's No Direction Home: Bob Dylan and Pennebaker's portrait of Dylan Don't Look ...

Legal scholar strums Phil Ochs' anthem of engagement at convocation
YFile
More News, Legal scholar strums Phil Ochs' anthem of engagement at convocation. During his convocation address to graduates of Osgoode Hall Law School on ...

Yield to the euphony
Times of India
As American protest singer Phil Ochs famously said: 'One good song with a message can bring a point more deeply to more people than a thousand rallies'. ...

The List: Rock stars too young to die
Washington Times
Phil Ochs — The American folk singer who wrote such protest songs as “There but for Fortune,” “The War Is Over” and the patriotic song “Power and the Glory” ...

New Coen Brothers Film May Highlight Greenwich Village Folk Scene
Movieline
... are potentially headed downtown for their next big-screen feature, a story about famed musician Dave Van Ronk and the dawn of the '60s folk music scene in New York's Greenwich Village that helped make Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Phil Ochs famous. ...

Phil Ochs - The Ballad of Sonny Liston

Recorded live on October 19, 1975 at Folk City in New York City, NY.

Phil Ochs in the News

Dylan Jones: 'Bob Dylan once kicked Phil Ochs out of his car saying, 'You’re not a folk singer, you're a journalist'
The Independent
Barack Obama has never spoken of his fondness for the late Phil Ochs, and it is completely possible that he has never heard of him. One of America's foremost protest singers, he described himself as a "left social democrat", and during the Sixties ...

4th of July song lists featuring Phil Ochs:

These go to 11: A Fourth of July soundtrack
Reverb
By Michael Behrenhausen

10 America-Themed Songs for the Fourth of July
95.5 GLO
By Jordan Breindel

Discussion of the documentary Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune, following a screening at the Red River Theatres in Concord, New Hampshire on June 23, 2011:

Jello Biafra & Mojo Nixon - Love Me, I'm a Liberal (Live 2009)

Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon perform the song "Love Me, I'm a Liberal" at a special benefit for Paul Williams in San Francisco on June 28, 2009.

Phil Ochs in the News

The last American heroes
Sydney Morning Herald
As veteran music men will, he continues by citing another lyric, this time from a record he produced for American folk hero Phil Ochs in 1970. ...

Movie profiles '60s singer Phil Ochs
Cincinnati.com
"God help the troubadour who tries to be a star," Phil Ochs warned in his song "Chords of Fame." The lines echo with bitter irony. Ochs' personal celebrity ...

AUDIO: Van Dyke Parks on Phil Ochs (and the Byrds)
Steve Roeser, Rock's Backpages Audio, September 1997

Phil Ochs - Doesn't Lenny Live Here Anymore (Live 1966)

Recorded live on October 22nd, 1966 at the Salle Claude Champagne, University of Montreal in Montreal, QC, Canada.

Phil Ochs in the News

John Wesley Harding: Considered as the Novelist Wesley Stace
Crawdaddy! The Magazine of Rock
“So I used to update Phil Ochs songs to be about whatever it was we didn't like at the time… the cuts at the hospitals, or support for the Miner's Strike. ...

YouTube Suppresses U.S. Torture Video While It Restores One About ...
Forbes
I've been writing topical songs for over 25 years, in, Billboard magazine once said, “the best Phil Ochs tradition.” I don't believe my lyrics ...

The Return Of The Fugs
MOJO
It's like Phil Ochs - I still grieve for Phil from 1976. So I don't know, I'll probably grieve for Tuli for the rest of my time on Gaia. ...

Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger in To Hear Your Banjo Play (1946)

Phil Ochs - Love Me, I'm a Liberal (Live 1971)

Recorded live on April 17, 1971 at Hunter College, New York City, NY.

Phil Ochs: Chords of Fame (1984 Documentary)

Chords of Fame is a 1984 feature-length documentary film about Phil Ochs, a U.S. singer-songwriter of the 1960s and early 1970s. The film was directed by Michael Korolenko, written by Mady Schutzman, and produced by Korolenko, Schutzman, and David Sternburg. It was funded in part by grants from the American Film Institute and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Chords of Fame features Bill Burnett as Ochs in re-enactments of scenes from his life. The film includes interviews with people who had known Ochs, including Yippies Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, manager Harold Leventhal, and Mike Porco, the owner of Gerde's Folk City. Chords of Fame also includes performances of Ochs songs by folk musicians who knew him, such as Bob Gibson, Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk, and Eric Andersen. The film concludes with footage of Ochs performing "I Ain't Marching Anymore" at The Troubadour in Los Angeles.

Reviewing the film in The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote that by re-enacting scenes from Ochs's life, Korolenko took "an exasperating approach" in making Chords of Fame. She would have preferred photos and recordings of Ochs himself. "The singer's own voice is almost entirely absent from this biography," she wrote, "and this omission makes Chords of Fame seem, at the very best, incomplete."

Eleanor Mannikka, writing at Allmovie, agreed. "This biographical documentary would have benefitted [sic] from more of the singer's own performances, allowing viewers to better judge his talent."

As of 2011, Chords of Fame has not been released on DVD.

Wikipedia

Phil Ochs in the News

The Political Bob Dylan
truthout
Broadside magazine asked Phil Ochs, another “protest” singer-songwriter, if he thought that Dylan would like to see his protest songs “buried. ...

Phil Ochs - protest singer for his time and ours
The Reaction
A few weeks ago a friend gave me a copy of a relatively new documentary about the life and times of singer-songwriter Phil Ochs. Ochs wasn't all that famous ...

From The 'Vinyl Deeps,' Ellen Willis Wrote About Rock
NPR
Phil Ochs had predicted that Dylan might someday be assassinated by a fan. Pete Seeger believed Dylan could become the country's greatest troubadour, ...

Reliving the glory days of folk music
CanadianChristianity.com
As the sixties unfolded, Phil Ochs brought a political sensibility to the proceedings, while more introspective writers like Fred Neil and Tim Buckley dealt ...

Phil Ochs - If I Knew

Phil Ochs in the News

The Political Bob Dylan
Huffington Post
At a time when the chill of McCarthyism was still in the air, Dylan also showed that songs with leftist political messages could be commercially successful. Unwittingly, Dylan laid the groundwork for other folk musicians and performers of the era, some of whom -- like Phil Ochs, the subject of a wonderful new documentary -- were more committed to the two major movements that were challenging America's status quo, and helped them reach wider audiences.

Who he was and who he became
Uptown
Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune paints an unflinching portrait of the political protest singer

In rotation: Woody Guthrie's 'Live Wire'
Los Angeles Times
On this recording, Guthrie’s approach is casual and conversational, revealing the so-called Dust Bowl balladeer to be both strong in voice and the consummate entertainer: smart and amiable, offering funny between-song banter and a long, autobiographical greeting to the audience. And that voice: You can hear in it not only the whole of the folk revival of the late ’50s through the ’60s — musicians such as Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and Phil Ochs

Song of the Day: Phil Ochs – “Love Me, I’m A Liberal”
SSG Music
The 60s American folk revival had many prolific protest singers in its service, but none were more sharp witted than Phil Ochs.

Phil Ochs in the News

Intimate portrait of driven protest singer Phil Ochs
Winnipeg Free Press
Kenneth Bowser's documentary offers a corrective, intimate portrait of the singer, a man who fought the good fight against political demons -- Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, the CIA -- but was ultimately vanquished by his inner ones: Ochs killed himself at the age of 35.

Phil Ochs - How High's the Watergate

Recorded live on March 12, 1974 at Earl Of Old Town, Chicago, IL.

Phil Ochs Covers: Ian and Slyvia - Changes

Phil Ochs in the News

Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune is a sad look at the folk star
Isthmus
If you're just getting acquainted with the music of Phil Ochs and you're not sure how important he is, you'll be struck by something Pete Seeger says in the documentary Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune. "Here I am with two of the greatest songwriters ...

Vinyl Cave: Mono vs. stereo with Phil Ochs, Super Super Blues Band, and The Rolling Stones
Isthmus Daily Page
One odd case along those lines I've unearthed is Phil Ochs' Tape from California, released after most companies discontinued mono but extant as both mono and stereo radio promos -- sort of. It turns out the "mono" version actually plays stereo if you ...

Review of new Phil Ochs Documentary
105.5 FM Triple M
77 Square's Rob Thomas talks about the new documentary on Phil Ochs.

New photo of Phil Ochs at Newport Folk Festival, 1966

See the Newport photo here. Dick Waterman's photography website also features this photo, apparently from Montreal, 1966.

Phil Ochs - Old Concepts Never Die

Recorded live on June 3, 1964 at the Gaslight Cafe, New York City.

Phil Ochs - All Quiet on the Western Front

Recorded live on May 16, 1969 at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, PA.

Phil Ochs in the News

There but for Dylan
Connect Savannah.com
There But for Fortune, Kenneth Bowser's documentary about 1960s protest singer Phil Ochs, is like the man himself – fascinating and frustrating. ...

Is the Protest Song Dead?
New York Times
And since the book quotes the protest singer Phil Ochs's quip that he would “rather listen to a good song on the side of segregation than a bad song on the ...

Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Washington Post
Half a century ago he served as a major influence for the likes of Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs and just shy of his 80th birthday is experiencing a second ...

Phil Ochs - Firehouse 35

Recorded live on June 3, 1965 at the Gaslight Cafe, New York City.

Phil Ochs in the News

There But For fortune
Mesquite Local News
... singer/songwriter Phil Ochs makes an appropriate summary for an article on how student activists during the sixties ended up in the places they have ...

'I'm certainly not in any way tired of the music'
City Pulse
“I played a lot of Pete Seeger and some of the anti-war singer/songwriters, the protest singers who were still active in the 1970s: Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, ...

Say it ain't so Bob
Irish Echo
You once accused the great Phil Ochs, a bona-fide politico, of being a mere journalist (ouch!). Water under the bridge now. But you did write “With God On ...

What's the Best Protest Song Ever?
The Nation.
... Bob Dylan's Blowin' in the Wind, Phil Ochs' I Ain't Marchin' Anymore, Bob Marley's Get Up, Stand Up, Gil Scott-Heron's The Revolution Will Not be ...

Dan Berman Reviews “Phil Ochs”
Brookline.com
I’ll be the first to confess that the folk music in general never appealed to me but after watching this astounding work it’s made me a fan for life. It’s not every day a film causes a sense of inspiration and hope through tough times, but this effort really captures your imagination and provokes you to be creative.

Phil Ochs Covers: Joan Baez - There But For Fortune (Live 2011)

Medium Cool (1969)

Medium Cool (1969) is a film written and directed by Haskell Wexler and starring Robert Forster, Verna Bloom, Peter Bonerz, Marianna Hill and Harold Blankenship. It takes place in Chicago in the summer of 1968. It was notable for Wexler's use of cinema vérité-style documentary filmmaking techniques, as well as for combining fictional and non-fictional content.

In 2003, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Phil Ochs News: There But for Fortune Documentary to Be Released on DVD

The DVD for Kenneth Bowser's documentary Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune will be released on July 19, 2011.

Phil Ochs' biopic shows dark side of '60s folk music scene
Bellingham Herald
The short and tragic life of Phil Ochs is as involving as the music he wrote and played, and that is saying a great deal. If you remember the 1960s, ...

'Phil Ochs' documentary finally gives Cleveland-bred 1960s singer-songwriter his due
By Michael Sangiacomo, The Plain Dealer
At last Phil Ochs, one of the brightest lights of the 1960s folk scene, is getting a measure of the respect he deserves.

WKSU News: Phil Ochs Remembered
By Vivian Goodman
A new documentary follows protest singer Phil Ochs from his folk roots in Ohio in the 1960s to his emotional collapse and suicide...

A 1960s voice that's still worth hearing in 2011
By Chuck Jaffee
TheUnion.com
When Phil Ochs came to know Bob Dylan, Ochs changed his tune a little. Instead of saying that he was striving to be the best songwriter alive, Ochs was satisfied to work at being the second best songwriter alive.

Phil Ochs in the News

'Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune' a sobering look at a '60s folk singer
Kansas City Star
Sixties troubadour Phil Ochs desperately wanted stardom but lived in the shadow of Bob Dylan. But Phil Ochs, who in the early '60s was every bit as ...

'60s singer Phil Ochs doc at Cinema Arts
Newsday
By RAFER GUZMÁN Though not the most famous musical figure of the 1960s, the protest singer Phil Ochs was one of the most emblematic ...

Poet of protest: 'Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune' chronicles the life and times of folk singer
New York Daily News
Phil Ochs — sometimes Dylan's friend, sometimes his rival, sometimes his target and forever his compadre from the 1960s Greenwich Village music world — had ...

Documentary shines light on '60s folk singer Phil Ochs - PopMatters
By Rafer Guzman
NEW YORK — Though not the most famous musical figure of the 1960s, the protest singer Phil Ochs was one of the most emblematic. He began the decade raising his voice against injustice and war, but ended it feeling increasingly voiceless ...

Remembering Phil Ochs, 35 Years After His Death | The New Republic
By David Hajdu
Thirty-five years ago this Saturday, Phil Ochs, the earnest singing polemicist of the 1960s, hung himself. He suffered from depression and other emotional ...
www.tnr.com/blog/the-famous.../phil-ochs-bob-dylan-protest

Phil Ochs Interview on PBS Folk Guitar with Laura Weber (1966)

Phil Ochs in the News: There But for Fortune Documentary Film Reviews

Balboa Theater screens documentary on Phil Ochs
San Francisco Examiner
Music documentary: “Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune,” a new documentary about the 1960s troubadour, is playing at the Balboa Theater. Violinist Regina Carter, recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant, performs at Yoshi's. Her latest recording, “Reverse ...

Folk Singer Documentary Captures a Generation
Patch.com
By Zack Ruskin
A line of patrons waiting to see a screening of “Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune” snaked from the Rafael Theatre around A Street yesterday evening. The film, introduced by Ochs's daughter, Meegan Lee Ochs ...

The Rise and Fall of Progressive Dissent
Beyond Chron
22‚ 2011 The remarkable new documentary on 1960's folksinger and activist Phil Ochs offers a striking contrast between 1960's activists and those of 2011. The former engaged in massive anti-war protests against Democratic President Lyndon Johnson ...

The Music and Its Message: Songs of Protest and Cultural Identity
Huffington Post
With massive demonstrations in Wisconsin and Michigan (as well as what's happening throughout the Middle East), the timely release of Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune is cause for celebration. A beloved singer-songwriter of protest songs (who recorded ...

Culture Shocks: Sonny Ochs
with Barry Lynn
Sonny Ochs, the sister of 60′s folk singer, Phil Ochs talks about her brother and the Kenneth Bowser documentary, Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune detailing his life and music.

Movie Stars
Boston Globe
Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune A clear-eyed memorial to the late folk singer, whose mixture of ambition and idealism ensured he wouldn't get out of the counterculture years alive. ...

Review: Documentary captures life and music of' 60s folk singer Ochs
Lincoln Journal Star
"Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune" follows the folk singers life and music. (Courtesy photo) The Reel Story: This powerful documentary tells the story of 1960s/1970s folk singer Phil Ochs and his still relevant political/protest music. ...

Phil Ochs: A Folk Legend Lost And The Film That Revives Him
Crawdaddy! Magazine
Director Ken Bowser is on a roll. He’s juggling phone calls in his New York City office, talking to theaters all over America that are eager to show his new documentary Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune.

For sale: The house where Greenpeace was born
Globe and Mail
In 1970, the folk singer Phil Ochs accepted an invitation to dinner. He was to perform that night at a fundraising concert, along with Joni Mitchell and ...

A Conversation With Dawn Danby, Sustainable Design Expert
The Atlantic
Honestly, Phil Ochs's "Tape from California" is stuck looping in my head, although I'm listening to a lot of Chad VanGaalen and Ali Farka Touré. ...

Communication frustration
San Diego CityBEAT
Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune: Documentary about the legendary folk singer, whose antiwar songs united a generation and spawned his depression and ...

Phil Ochs in the News: There But for Fortune Documentary Film Reviews

Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune review
Washington Post
By Michael O'Sullivan A dark shadow hangs over Kenneth Bowser's documentary portrait "Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune." It isn't the 1976 suicide of the ...

Phil Ochs: 'Gone' not forgotten
Boston Herald
By James Verniere The biographical documentary “Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune” opens today at the Coolidge Corner Theatre and begins with the ...

Phil Ochs' daughter on 'There But for Fortune'
San Francisco Chronicle
Meegan Lee Ochs with a photo of her and dad Phil Ochs on one of his albums. Among the folk and protest singers who populated Greenwich Village a generation ...

Art House Beat: Phil Ochs Finally Gets His Own Movie, and It's a Pretty Good One
Seattle Post Globe
Now, thirty-five years after his death, Ochs is finally the star of his own movie and the supporting cast, which includes Ed Sanders, Van Dyke Parks, Joan Baez, Judy Henske, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Paul Krassner, Dave Van Ronk, Pete Seeger, and Peter Yarrow, is flawless.

The highs and lows of a defiant folk singer
Boston Globe
Phil Ochs performing during a Vietnam moratorium demonstration outside the ... (Michael Ochs) By Ty Burr The short, triumphant, tragic career of Phil Ochs ...

Phil Ochs: Why Neil Young, Ben Barnett & other great musicians love him (& why you should see his doc at NWFF!)
Three Imaginary Girls
Ochs isn't for your parents: He's for you, just like Tim Buckley, or The Clash, or Dylan, or Crass, or The Mekons, or Parenthetical Girls, or The Slits, or whatever great folk-swooning-cum-punk-spirited muse-filled anti-authoritarian artist juiced you up when you first fell in love with rock as rebellion, Ochs had more in common with John Belushi's Bluto smashing the acoustic guitar against the wall of a frat house in Animal House than the preppie playing it to impress someone with a corny 50s folk song.

Film Review: Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune
Berkeley Daily Planet
Phil Ochs during a Vietnam moratorium demonstration outside the UN Building in New York in 1967. There but for Fortune, a loving tribute to the remarkable career of political activist and balladeer Phil Ochs, is the film my generation has been waiting ...

Film Review — “Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune” - Mar 16
Beyond Chron
16‚ 2011 Political folk singer Phil Ochs could be called a leftist John Wayne whose topical songs nurtured American political culture's better angels. The story of Ochs' musical career and his tragically brief life are recounted in Kenneth Bowser's ...

New doc exposes the bleeding heart of Phil Ochs
Santa Cruz Sentinel
Goldie Hawn on "Laugh-In," ..., you probably would not flash on the name of Phil Ochs until around 65 or so. Which is sad, considering that the life of Ochs "" as pointed out in the new documentary "Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune" "" is, in microcosm ...

Phil Ochs doc, animated alien 'Paul,' Ann Arbor Film Fest, and more at the ...
AnnArbor.com
Over the course of a meteoric music career that spanned two turbulent decades, folk singer Phil Ochs rose to fame at the height of the 1960s protest movements; fiercely devoted to championing peace and social justice, his incisive lyrics and resonant ...

Pick of the Day: Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune at Belcourt ...
Nashville Scene
Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune Where: The BelcourtWhen: March 15-17 Too prickly and ironic a truth-teller to be fully embraced by the same wide...

Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune | Movies | Metro Newspapers
Metro Active
The latest information on new movies, including reviews and showtimes, as well as a listing of theaters throughout the South Bay Area.

Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune | Film Reviews & Movie Showtimes
Bohemian.com
Phil Ochs documentary covers all the bases. By Richard von Busack. The long- awaited documentary Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune leaves nothing to be ...

Review: A thoughtful 'Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune'
San Jose Mercury News
By Kenneth Turan The short and tragic life of Phil Ochs is as involving as the music he wrote and played, and that is saying a great deal. If you remember the 1960s, you more than likely remember the singer-songwriter who composed hundreds of songs, ...

Phil Ochs on television
Hartford Advocate
By Ann Lewinson The documentary Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune, which opens tonight at Real Art Ways with a post-screening discussion with Phil's sister Sonny, may leave you with the impression that director Kenneth Bowser didn't have much footage to ...

Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune (2010)
Culture Vulture
"Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune," is a perceptive and moving documentary film about the iconic folk music hero and political protester of the 1960s. The film is a "must see" for those who lived through the turbulent 1960s and those who today question our country's continuing engagement in foreign wars.

Phil Ochs in the News

'Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune'
MiamiHerald.com
By KENNETH TURAN LOS ANGELES -- The short and tragic life of Phil Ochs is as involving as the music he wrote and played, and that is saying a great deal. If you remember the 1960s, you more than likely remember the singer-songwriter who composed ...

Suicidal Bob Dylan Rival Phil Ochs: A Movie Star at Last
Hollywood Reporter
After 20 years' work, Ken Bowser's doc about '60s folk singer Phil Ochs opens Friday, with a little help from Sean Penn and "Spider-Man" producer Michael Cohl. After 20 years' work, Ken Bowser's doc about '60s folk singer Phil Ochs opens in six cities ...

Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune -- New Documentary Opens in Los Angeles
Huffington Post
At the center of the storm was Phil Ochs, a singer/songwriter who's been overlooked by many but who penned such anthems of the era as Joan Baez's signature song, "There But For Fortune" which is the title of a new feature length documentary about Ochs ...

Phil Ochs, Tom Paine and American Redemption
CounterPunch
By BRUCE E. LEVINE In the 1960s, singer/songwriter/revolutionary Phil Ochs was sometimes described as “Tom Paine with a guitar.” Without regard for political correctness, both Paine and Ochs confronted all illegitimate authorities and hypocrisy. ...

ZCommunications | Phil Ochs by John Pietaro | ZMagazine Article
Documentarian Ken Bowser walked up the aisle to the front of the IFC Center in Greenwich Village for the premiere of Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune and ...

Review: "Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune" Sings | NBC Bay Area
A new documentary about the singer-songwriter, is here to tell people of the man's greatness.

Movie guide alt: Independent, limited release and foreign-language ...
Macon Telegraph
"Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune" - This documentary follows the music career of folk singer and political activist Phil Ochs. With Joan Baez, Tom Hayden, ...

Movie review: 'Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune' - Los Angeles Times
The short and tragic life of Phil Ochs is as involving as the music he wrote and played, and that is saying a great deal. If you remember the 1960s, ...

'Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune': Movie Review - WTXX
Phil Ochs' short, tragic life and tremendous musical legacy are explored in Kenneth Bowser's excellent 'Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune.'

Film Review: Phil Ochs – There But For Fortune - Americana and ...
Although his name is mainly a footnote today, Phil Ochs was one of folk music's headliners in the early '60s, rivaling Bob Dylan in the spotlight of fame ...

Protest songs: posing or inspiring?
By Martin Chilton, Digital Culture Editor, The Telegraph
A new book called 33 Revolutions Per Minute is a brilliant history of protest music but it has some downbeat conclusions.

Movie Review: Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune @ NWFF
By Chris Estey
He shows up in an early, bizarre They Might Be Giants song — “The Day (Marvin Gaye And Phil Ochs Got Married)”. (What was going on with that?) You hear about influential, long-time indie-scene musicians such as Billy Bragg, ...

Review: Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune - Reviews
The Boston Phoenix
Powerful rock doc about America's seminal protest rocker.

Phil Ochs and the Marxist Minstrels

Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune Documentary Movie Reviews

Art-house films: ‘Phil Ochs,’ ‘The Grace Card’
Chicago Sun-Times
by Bill Stamets
This well-made documentary profiles folk singer Phil Ochs (1940-1976) and also chronicles the counterculture of the ’60s. Director Kenneth Bowser’s writing and producing credits include documentaries about John Ford, John Wayne, Frank Capra and Preston Sturges. He also directed “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls,” a look at a renegade generation of Hollywood directors in the ’70s.

The Films Of Folkways
SEE Magazine
There was a time when the names of Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan were of equal status. Those were the days of protest marches and protest singers: the early ’60s, when fashion and politics coincided briefly. But fashion moved on. Since then, Dylan has become an international icon with almost god-like status and Phil Ochs is largely forgotten, except by those who were around during the folk scene.

Drive Angry 3D, Hall Pass & Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune
Gapers Block
by Steve Prokopy
Sometimes, the value of a documentary is in the learning more than the form the film takes. For example, director Kenneth Bowser's well-researched, extremely knowledgeable work about folk-singing legend Phil Ochs is a fairly standard issue biography with talking-head interviews, films clips, and lot of Ochs' powerful music. I knew a bit about Ochs because I had a history professor in college who was obsessed with him, and would take any opportunity to pull out one of Ochs' albums (on vinyl, naturally) to play for the class.

Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune
Vue Weekly
by Josef Braun
Phil Ochs went to New York to become the world's greatest songwriter, but he met Bob Dylan and thereafter amended his ambition: he'd settle for second greatest. Dylan, who does not appear in Kenneth Bowser's Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune, was reportedly unkind to Ochs, despite a friendship that would last until Ochs' death in 1976. Yet Dylan's advice to Ochs, his insistence that songs be grounded in the personal as much as the political, tells us a great deal about the difference between these mutually single-minded, era-defining artists.

Where is Phil Ochs When We Really Need Him?

by Peter Stone Brown

I’m pretty sure it was in the ’80s when Reagan was president that these buttons appeared in the remains of head shops, probably in what was once the hip sections of certain cities that said: “Where is Phil Ochs now that we need him?” Those buttons would be equally relevant and perhaps more so right now.

[Read More at CounterPunch]

Phil Ochs Documentary - The Sunday Edition on CBC Radio

Phil Ochs Documentary - Our Third Hour this morning is all about the towering talent and tragic life of Phil Ochs.

His protest songs became the anthems of the 60s upheaval in civil rights, poverty and an immoral war.

He was gifted, funny, abrasive, a raging ego-maniac and a victim of severe mental illness.

He committed suicide more than 30 years ago at the age of 35 but a new documentary about his life and work brings him alive again. Michael will talk to the director.

[Listen]

Phil Ochs in the News

On Screen - Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune
EYEWEEKLY.com
By James Anderson
“He was like the hero of his own movie,” says Sean Penn of the singer-songwriter who blazed a path for artistic do-gooders. But it wouldn’t be easy for Phil Ochs to maintain his self-made image as a valiant troubadour striving to rid America of all that ailed her. As Kenneth Bowser’s documentary makes painfully clear, the personal toll would be immense. One of the key figures to emerge from the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early ’60s, and the author of “I Ain’t Marching Anymore”—the de facto anthem of the anti-war movement—Ochs would die by his own hand in 1976, at the age of 35.

What killed Phil Ochs?
NOW Magazine
By Susan G. Cole
Director argues politics, as much as illness, brought him down

Q&A with Director of Phil Ochs Documentary Part of Opening Night Event at Gables Cinema
Miami New Times
By Sebastian Del Marmol
Despite what we've seen on Mad Men, the Sixties were not all about capitalistic greed. In fact, the decade witnessed the explosion of counterculture movements, social revolution, and most importantly the birth of the hippies. Enter Phil Ochs. The anti-Don Draper.

‘Ochs’ more than just a biopic
Toronto Sun
By Liz Braun
More than just a biopic of the famed troubadour, Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune is also a brief, brisk, brilliant history of social turmoil in America in the '60s.

Friday Film: Phil Ochs Finally Gets His Biopic
Forward.com
By Susie Davidson
Last month, fans of 1960s singer-songwriter Phil Ochs got some long-delayed gratification when the film “Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune,” directed by Kenneth Bowser, opened in limited release at New York’s IFC Center. With reviews ranging from good to excellent, the movie is now scheduled for runs at 57 theaters nationwide. Aficionados are optimistic that the enigmatic topical singer will finally get the recognition he craved.

New Phil Ochs Film: Still Marchin' Across the Land
The Nation
By Greg Mitchell
When the new documentary about legendary political folk singer Phil Ochs opened in New York early last month, its touring schedule cited only nine cities in all. But after playing for four weeks in New York, and doing well elsewhere, it's now opened or is opening across the country in a total of 60 cities. It's debuting today, for example, everywhere from Coral Gables, Fla. to Toronto, Ontario.

Ambition runs head-on into reality
The Columbus Dispatch
By Stephen Holden
To say that 1960s folk singer Phil Ochs dreamed big is to understate the size of his ambition.

Two music docs sing vastly different tunes
The Globe and Mail
By Liam Lacey
Two documentary musical biographies are being released in Toronto this week, both artifacts of the pop-music big bang of the 1960s.

Movie Review - Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune
NOW Magazine
By Susan G. Cole
Would a gifted artist kill himself in response to his political environment? Kenneth Bowser makes that argument in his documentary about charismatic songwriter Phil Ochs.

Ex-agents describe spying on civilians

February 25, 1971

WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Former military undercover men testified Wednesday that the Army snooped on politicians, celebrities, civil rights leaders, radicals, reporters and thousands of ordinary Americans and kept personal files on them in big, centralized computers.

They said 1,500 Army plainclothes agents had infiltrated, photographed, recorded and watched over political picnics, party conventions, peace marches, a union meeting, yippie communes, a church youth group and a drunken college brawl in Yap, N.D.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said even the hearing itself was being watched. He said an Army military intelligence unit was taping the session.

Names names, dates and places, former agents Christopher H. Pyle, Ralph M. Stein and John O'Brien went before the Senate constitutional rights subcommittee to document their assertion that military intelligence had intruded into American political affairs in a growing threat to the right of free speech and separation of the military from civil politics.

Pyle and Stein told the subcommittee that Army files and blacklists include not only Communists such as Gus Hall, but former servicemen who have spoken out against the Vietnam war, such as Adm. Arnold E. True and Brig. Gen. Hugh B. Hester; folk singers Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Phil Ochs, Joan Baez and Judy Collins; Executive Director Whitney Young of the Urban League; Julius Hobson Jr., a member of the District of Columbia School Board; actress Jane Fonda; Ralph David Abernathy, head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and others.

Stein, who spent 15 months as a sergeant in the Army's Counterintelligence Analysis Branch in 1967-68, said the files contained detailed financial information, sexual activities, "especially illicit or unconventional," and personal beliefs and associations.

He said the names and data were put in a microfilm bank and given a number to classify the individual's political beliefs.

"For instance, 134.295 indicated that a person was a non-Communist, while 135.295 indicated Communist Party membership or advocacy of communism," Stein said.

Pyle, a former Army intelligence captain who is preparing a doctoral dissertation on the subject, said the Army maintains more than 1,500 plainclothes agents working out of 300 offices and scores of military bases from coast to coast.

Sen. Sam J. Ervin, D-N.C. charged that military spying was a direct threat to the First Amendment of the Constitution.

"The purpose of the Army is to protect this country against foreign forces," he said. "The Army under no circumstances has any right under the Constitution to enter into this area except where it is apparent that civilian law enforcement officers have attempted to suppress violence and failed."

O'Brien, 26, a former sergeant who served for a year with the 113th Military Intelligence Group in Evanston, Ill., said he had personally seen the file on Stevenson. It was started in September, 1969 when Stevenson was state treasurer of Illinois, he said.

He said the only reason the Army started the file was that undercover men had attended a Democratic Party picnic at Stevenson's home in Libertyville, Ill. and reported back that the Rev. Jesse Jackson was planning to endorse Stevenson's pending candidacy for the Senate. Jackson is a leader of Chicago's Black Community, heading an organization called Operation Breadbasket.

O'Brien said Stevenson's folder began to build with newspaper clippings and more reports from agents on his activities. Once a file was started, he said, undercover agents were on orders to collect all information possible on the "target."

Phil Ochs in the News

Now Playing: Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune
Miami New Times
Protest singer Phil Ochs found the sources for his lyrics in periodicals, titling his 1964 debut album All the News That's Fit to Sing. ...

'60s voice of protest had roots at OSU
Columbus Dispatch
By Nick Chordas - Five decades after singer-songwriter Phil Ochs left Ohio State University, stories about the artist still circulate among the old guard of ...

'The Daily' Borrows Joan Baez
The AtlanticWire
And, if you ask us, it sounds suspiciously like the Phil Ochs song "There But Fortune," popularized by Joan Baez. Find me an amazing human story at a trial ...

The Revolution Is Televised

by M. Dennis Paul, Ph.D
Salem-News.com

As I endlessly stare at Al Jazeera and CNN and strain to hear a message of hope from someone..anyone.. and dissect it.. placing it in comparison with all the coups of history having occurred in my lifetime.. I cannot help but run Phil Ochs' “CRUCIFIXION” over and over again in my mind and endlessly wipe my eyes. These people will either live or die.. and all will eventually die. These people will struggle as they have never struggled before.. and their pain will pour from their flesh like fire and like ice. These people and their future generations will win almost as much as they will lose. History reminds me that evil is overcome only for short stretches of time. It hovers over the newborn waiting for the first sign of weakness.. waiting for the ill and the maimed. Inevitably the workers who have overcome the hive succumb to a queen. Inevitably, the lovers find fault and crush the spirit that dared them to challenge the odds of everlasting.

[Read More]

Vets to attend war inquiry

January 29, 1971

By JOANNE SUTTON

About 25 members of Ohio State Veterans Against the War (VAW) are planning to participate in their own inquiry on Vietnam war crimes in Detroit this weekend.

The purpose of the "Winter Soldier Investigations" (WSI) is to prove war crimes were committed by U.S. soldiers and that they were "the inexorable result of national policy," according to Tim Holder, a junior from Columbus and president of the local VAW.

The WSI takes its name indirectly from Thomas Paine's phrase "the summer soldier and sunshine patriot" of the American Revolution, those men who fought for the cause when the weather was good. A statement from WSI reads, "our greatest debt is to the men who served during that cold winter at Valley Forge."

"Those who testify in Detroit are the winter soldiers of the Vietnam War," William Crandell, a graduate student from Sylvania member of the steering committee of WSI, said.

According to Holder, former enlisted men and officers from various Marine, Army, Air Force, and Navy divisions will testify about war crimes their units had committed. He said testimony of massacres, torture of prisoners and murder of prisoners will be offered.

"No names will be used, so there will be no scapegoats," Holder said. "And those who testify need have no fear of prosecution since they are out of uniform."

The first day will begin with accounts of the use of weapons which have been outlawed by international treaty. Holder cited the use of anti-personnel bombs which are timed to explode a few minutes after they hit the ground and the all clear signal has been sounded.

"We feel an obligation to inform the American public about what's happening," Crandell said. "We know, we are there."

The investigation is being conducted by honorably discharged veterans who served in Vietnam, he said. It is being supported by donations from Businessmen for Peace and contributions raised by singers Phil Ochs, Dave Crosby and Graham Nash.

Crosby and Nash will perform Saturday in Detroit, and admission will be free for veterans, Holder said.

Free room and board will be provided for all veterans who attend either to testify or to watch.

Howard Zinn, professor of political science at Yale will be the moderator, according to Crandell. Zinn recently visited American POWs in Vietnam.

WSI has called on all churches to declare Sunday, a day of mourning for those who have died in Vietnam, and a day of prayer that the war will now end. Veterans will speak in churches throughout the country on Sunday morning, Holder said.

Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune Documentary Film - DVD Release

The DVD release of Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune, directed by Kenneth Bowser, is scheduled for release on DVD by First Run Features on July 19, 2011. A theatre listing of screenings of the film can be found here.

AWOPBOMPALOOBOMP!!

Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune - Metro Times Film Review

By Corey Hall
Metro Times
Quixotic, troubled, joyful and haunted, Phil Ochs was among the most tragic casualties of the collapse of the '60s idealistic dream, because, deep down, nobody believed in it more than he. A protest singer back when that actually meant something, Ochs was a flamethrower with a poet's heart, and a folkie with the rocker's soul.

Listen to - Phil Ochs: Still Marching

Billy Bragg looks at the life of Phil Ochs, who was part of the 1960s folk revival and the protest singer of his age.

[Listen]

Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune - FilmCritic.com Movie Review

by Chris Barsanti

Bob Dylan, or at least the idea of him, is the lurking, mocking background chorus in this beautiful, bittersweet look at postwar America's foremost agitprop singer/songwriter. For all that Phil Ochs could have achieved in his lauded but still overshadowed career, there stands Dylan, the one who came up through the same West Village coffeehouse folk scene but who had no problem jettisoning its politics once he realized that greater commercial reward was there for the taking without the encumbrance of protest. As Christopher Hitchens points out in the film, there was a difference between those who liked Dylan and those who even knew about Ochs -- anybody could be into Dylan, Ochs's songs were for those who cared.
[Read More]

Ohio Students Join Inaugural Protest

January 20, 1969

Editors note: This story was written by Louis Heldman, Lantern Special Writer, and supplemented by information from wire services.

About 450 Ohio college students, including many from Ohio State, joined in Washington Sunday under the banners of Ohio Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) to participate in the counter-inaugural parade.

The parade, sponsored by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE), attracted students from the Ohio colleges of: Cuyahoga Community College, Kent State University, Oberlin College, Otterbein College, Ohio University, and the University of Cincinnati.

Members of the Ohio State SDS chapter estimated that 250 of the students were from USO. About 100 Ohio State students were housed in the Ohio Movement Center, at the Brightwood Park Methodist Church in suburban Washington, Saturday night.

A discussion at the Brightwood Park Church Saturday night, attended by about 50 members of the Ohio State delegation, revealed that many students were reluctant to engage in any activities that might lead to violence. Speakers said they were willing to show their anger against "the System," but not by violence means.

Washington police estimated the number participating in the counter inaugural parade Sunday was 5,000.

The march formed at 15th and Pennsylvania Avenues, within the shadow of the Washington monument. The march proceeded down Pennsylvania Ave. in the opposite direction of the inaugural parade tomorrow. There were minor incidents along the way.

Most violent were the fight outside the gleaming white marble Science and Technology Building after the march was over and a brief flareup at the foot of Capitol Hill about an hour earlier.

Mounted policemen rode into the disheveled throng to drive it back from a Smithsonian Institution building after stones had been thrown toward a dozen dignitaries arriving for a reception for Vice President-elect Spiro T. Agnew.

While invited guests in evening clothes entered the Smithsonian building, protesters battled officers with bottles, rocks, sticks, mud and oak slats torn from large litter baskets.

Police said they could not determine immediately how many demonstrators were arrested, but estimated the total at about two dozen. Park police said two officers had been hospitalized, but no details were available.

Agnew arrived at a side entrance and eluded the demonstrators who had gathered to jeer him.

Eight mounted policemen, with nightsticks upraised, drove the demonstrators back after the rock-throwing started. Apparently the sticks were not used and no injuries were reported by guests or protesters.

When the parade ended at the foot of Capitol Hill, some of the protest leaders urged the crowd to move on but others linked arms and refused to move. That brought on the first confrontation of the day.

"Most of them were charged with failure to move on," Assistant Chief of Police Jerry V. Wilson said, "but some of them are being held for assault on policemen and disorderly conduct."

Some youths in the throng tried to rip down an American flag flying in front of the NASA building within sight of the Capitol.

However, a band of fellow marchers ringed the flagpole and turned back their colleagues after a spirited shoving match.

Police moved in to take over afterwards without further incident.

A counter-inaugural ball was held on a mall between the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial. The Mobilization committee had announced the ball's featured performers as singers Judy Collins, Phil Ochs, Janis Joplin, and the Fugs. Ochs, a former Ohio State student, performed early in the afternoon in a rally before the march.

Phil Ochs in the News

Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune – Movie Review
Monsters and Critics.com
By Ron Wilkinson
A touching look at a great American performer with a moral about ambition as well.

A Dad’s Point-of-View: Change Is Good
Huntington News
By Bruce Sallan
When we got out of the car, he asked me to hand him his songbook. I looked at him, puzzled, and asked, “Heck, why do you need it, you wrote all the songs?” to which he replied, “Sometimes the words don’t come to me anymore.”

There But for Fortune: Phil Ochs's Tragedy and Our Own

By DOUG LORANGER
CounterPunch
Thanks to Ken Bowser’s new documentary film Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune, the erasure of Phil Ochs from this country’s collective historical memory has just suffered from a well-deserved and hopefully irreversible blow. A labor of love many years in the making, There But For Fortune premiered in New York City in early January and will open elsewhere nationwide throughout the year.
[Read More]

Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune - Entertainment Weekly Movie Review

The late folksinger Phil Ochs burned bright in the 1960s, on fire with songs of protest while his competitor, Bob Dylan, sang of attitudes blowin' in the wind.

[Read More]

'Fundamentalists' Known by 5 Characteristics

January 11, 1965

(Last part of an interpretive series based on "The Radical Right" essays edited by Daniel Bell; Doubleday Anchor Book; 1964.)

By HAP CAWOOD

When a Billy Hargis Crusade representative told Columbus high school students several months ago that the Beatles were part of the Red plot to dominate America, many might have laughed.

Some fundamentalists, however, take this quite seriously. Located between the disrespectable right (say, the American Nazi Party) and the semi-respectable right (say, the D.A.R.), these fundamentalists are usually identifiable by five characteristics as listed by Alan F. Westin:

(1.) "They assume that there are always solutions capable of producing international victories and of resolving social problems." Failure is attributed "to conspiracies led by evil men and their dupes."

(2.) Leaders of major social and economic groups are regarded as "Communist-minded." Robert Welch of the John Birch Society has pointed the finger at the A.M.A. and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, among others.

Rejection

(3.) They reject the American political system as being unreliable.

(4.) "They reject those programs for dealing with social, economic and international problems that liberals and conservatives agree upon as minimal foundations. In their place, (they) propose drastic panaceas requiring major social change."

(5.) Finally, they advocate both "direct action" and "dirty tactics" to "break the grip of the Communist conspiracy."

Pressure Campaigns

Thus the fundamentalists might pressure against the selling of UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Educational Fund) Christmas cards, as they did last month in California, or "unknowns" might make threatening phone calls to the families of civics teachers using textbooks explaining the U.N.--harassing him until he leaves town, as they did to Dan O'Brian at Washington Court House. (The WRFD Commentator, Sept. 24, 1964.)

These "dirty tactics" and the "conspiracy paranoia" are psychologically related. To summarize (although poorly), Daniel Bell's explanation of Leon Festinger's psychological studies, the radical rightist is unwilling to see Russia's military strength "as a prime factor in the balance of terror." Nevertheless, the threat produces fear and he needs a justification for it. So he builds up an internal threat to take the place of the external realities he has denied (few are concerned with international politics).

By making his enemy the "soft underbelly of democracy," as Westin phrases it, he can both justify his fears and do something about them. Thus he agitates "where a minimum of pressure can often produce maximum terror and restrictive responses."

Martyr Appeal

As the fundamentalist sees communism as his enemy he can interpret frustrating realities as part of a Communist plot. Similarly, he can insulate himself from criticism by seeing himself as a martyr to a righteous and misunderstood cause. He can mix fantastic allegations with reasonableness and be convinced by the "reasonableness" that the allegations must also be true.

He is probably convinced of his Americanism as portrayed in public relations magazines picturing families saluting the flag.

Like The Communist

But, like the Communists, this same flag-saluting organization might use fronts, authoritarian leadership, secret membership and "dirty tactics." Its "preservation of America" might be by lessening individual liberties and by restricting the rights to assemble, petition, associate, teach, travel, speak or conduct research without having to conform to political tests.

They have yet to learn the truism that has allowed their presence: that freedom must extend to those with whom one disagrees.

Ken Bowser: Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune - Interview on GRITtv

Phil Ochs - There But For Fortune (Studio Version)

Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune

More screening dates for the documentary film have been added.

Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune - Film Review
PopMatters
By Cynthia Fuchs
The documentary is alternately illuminating and sketchy, using Ochs to reveal the decade.

Phil and Alice Ochs' Wedding

By Suze Rotolo

When Phil and Alice got married I was a witness at their wedding. By then Alice was visibly pregnant, and both of them were very nervous and giddy. During the ceremony at City Hall, we tried to stifle our giggles. The justice of the peace had to interrupt the proceedings to chastise us for not taking the situation seriously. No one was more serious about what they were doing than Alice and Phil. But that is precisely why it struck all of us as so funny.

Kenneth Bowser ABC Interview on Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune

Tom Paxton - "Phil" (live)

Phil Ochs in the News

There But for Fortune: Gift of Phil Ochs to the Future
by Paul Levinson
TV.com
This documentary about the life and times of Phil Ochs merits repeated viewing.

Trailer Park: “Season Of The Witch,” “The Absent,” “Phil Ochs: There But Of Fortune”
by Olivia Allin
TheFrisky.com
The Hitch: I’m actually very excited for this movie because Phil Ochs hasn’t gotten the kind of attention he deserves. He is a brilliant songwriter and one of my favorite musicians...

Paltrow’s Boozy Singer Tries Comeback; Cage’s Witch Hunt: Film
by Rick Warner
Bloomberg
Now largely forgotten, the singer gets a postmortem boost from a clear-eyed documentary titled “Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune.” Written and directed by Kenneth Bowser, it restores Ochs’s rightful place in the social history of one of the most tumultuous decades in U.S. history.

'Season Of The Witch' Finds An Evil Mood With Usher, Bloc Party
by Kyle Anderson
MTV
If you prefer your music films a little more political, this week also marks the release of "Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune," a sharp documentary about the extremely popular and influential protest singer.

Phil Ochs, Folkie, Back Home in the Village
by Melissa Anderson
The Village Voice
Bowser’s film is densely researched enough to yield insights not just into its overlooked subject, but also into his overly analyzed era.

Reel Music Festival 2011: Phil Ochs: ‘There But For Fortune’ — Rise and fall of a political troubador – Sunday
by Tom D'Antoni
Oregon Music News
Appearing in the doc are Joan Baez, Tom Hayden, Pete Seeger, Sean Penn, Peter Yarrow, Christopher Hitchens and Ed Sanders, but the key interview is with Ochs’ brother Michael. He is the thread, brutally honest in the most brotherly, thoughtful loving way.

‘Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune’ movie review and trailer
by Miriam Rinn
newjerseynewsroom.com
A star of the folk/protest song movement of the early sixties, the handsome Ochs was overshadowed by his friend and rival Bob Dylan, and overtaken by the rapid societal shift from the idealism of the Kennedy election to the disillusionment and cynicism of the Nixon regime just ten years later. He also was haunted by worsening mental illness, which drove him to suicide at the age of 35.

NY1 Movie Review: "Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune"
by Neil Rosen
NY1 News
This film, which shows Ochs' life -- flaws and all -- offers up a history lesson to those who are not that familiar with his musical work and societal contributions, and for Phil Ochs it provides some overdue recognition.