Phil Ochs, the Folksinger's Folksinger, Writes Himself Off -- Twisted Tales

New article from Spinner Canada:
Phil Ochs, the Folksinger's Folksinger, Writes Himself Off -- Twisted Tales.

Excerpt:
The topical folksinger Phil Ochs, once considered a counterpart to the young Bob Dylan, thought of himself as a singing journalist. "Every newspaper headline is a potential song," he once wrote.

But there wasn't much good news during Ochs' brief lifetime. He wrote songs about the death of JFK, the violent backlash against the civil rights movement and the escalation of the Vietnam War. Ochs' wishful song 'The War Is Over' lent John Lennon and Yoko Ono a political slogan.

Phil Ochs Sings for Broadside: Review

Phil Ochs Sings for Broadside, a cash-in LP release following Ochs' death in 1976, possessed a title that was only partially correct. In reality, only half of the songs were of Phil Ochs singing for Broadside magazine; the other half were in fact sung for a U.S. politician. According to the liner notes, the story went as follows:

Some time before Phil Ochs died April 9, 1976, in Far Rockaway, NY, he gave a benefit concert for Broadside. He brought us about $500. He also had the concert taped and he turned the tape over to us with the suggestion we make an LP Album out of it. "Let's give 'em one more broadside," he said. (It took us some time to realize that there was a certain tone of finality in this remark.) We played the tape and commented "there's not enough material on here to make a whole album and, besides, some of your best and strongest songs are missing." Phil laughed and pointed out "Look, you've got other tapes of mine. I don't think there's a single song I ever wrote that I didn't tape for you. Just splice on what you want. It's all yours. Have Moe Asch put it out."

The benefit concert in question actually took place in October 1974 for Ramsey Clark, who at the time was running for the U.S. Senate. That makes most of the paragraph a fabrication, with the exception of the correctly noted date and place of Ochs' passing. Why the fictitious story? Broadside magazine's founders, Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen, perennially strapped for cash according to their autobiography, Red Dust and Broadsides, were no doubt looking for a quick way to profit on their extensive Ochs archive of recordings. They followed this LP later that year with the Interviews with Phil Ochs LP, then in 1980 with The Broadside Tapes 1, when Michael Ochs stepped in and put a stop to any further Folkways releases bearing Phil Ochs' name (hence there never was a second volume of Broadside Tapes).

As to the content of the LP itself, the full Ramsey Clark concert is available in similar or better quality elsewhere (though only unofficially), but Phil is in fine form and it provides a rare glimpse into his latter day shows, which official CD releases have studiously steered away from. The remainder of the album is filled with rare Broadside demos - so rare in fact that the LP remains the only place to find recordings of "United Fruit" and "On Her Hand a Golden Ring," as the songs were spliced out of the original tapes during the making of the LP.

An interesting note of trivia: this LP was evidently picked up by The Clash, who in 1980 on their album Sandinista! released "Up in Heaven (Not Only Here)," which borrowed some lyrics from "United Fruit."

Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune to premiere at the Woodstock Film Festival 2010

From the press release:

The 11th annual Woodstock Film Festival today announced its 2010 line-up of nearly 150 fiercely independent films, panels, performances and special events, kicking-off Wednesday, September 29 through Sunday, October 3. Screenings and events take place in the historic, arts colony of Woodstock, and the neighboring towns of Rhinebeck, Rosendale, Mt. Tremper, and Kingston, in the Hudson Valley Catskills, just two hours from NYC.

- PHIL OCHS: THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE (World Premiere) – Directed by Kenneth Bowser. Music bio-documentary delves deep into the life of musical icon Phil Ochs. Civil rights. Freedom of Speech. The Vietnam War. Watergate. He wrote a song about them all, in large part creating the musical protest culture of the 60′s and 70′s. Through interviews with family and many well-known musicians who considered themselves fans of Phil Ochs, comes a vivid and compelling portrait of a controversial musical figure whose protest marked a generation. Director Kenneth Bowser will be in attendance for the Q & A, along with Michael Ochs, Phil’s brother.

According to the film schedule, Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune is scheduled to play on October 1 at 4:45 at the Bearsville Theater and October 2 at 6:30 at Upstate I (Rhinebeck). Kenneth Bowser will also be a panelist at "Music For Change," Utopia Studios, October 2, 4:00 pm "showcasing prominent and emerging musicians and fi lmmakers who use music as a tool for social change."

Dylan: "Get out of the car, Ochs"

The most famous story concerning Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan deals with Ochs criticizing one of Dylan's songs and Dylan tossing Ochs out of a limousine, but the details have become muddied over time.

One of the more common explanations pegs the song in question as "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" See, for example, Wikipedia's summary:

Dylan played the song to Phil Ochs as the two were riding in a limousine. When Ochs expressed a lukewarm feeling about the piece, Dylan kicked him out of the limousine, yelling "You're not a folk singer. You're a journalist."

The song, in fact, was not played in the car, and it was in fact another song recorded at the same session in 1965: "One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)." This was explained by Ochs to Rolling Stone and to author Marc Eliot (who included the anecdote in his revised outro to Death of a Rebel). The story as usually told at least captures the sentiment correctly: Ochs felt that Dylan was losing his songwriting clarity in the material recorded for Blonde On Blonde, and Dylan felt that Ochs' writing on political matters was "bullshit," and that only expressions of a personal nature mattered (this was a change, of course, from his early embrace of topical songwriting).

Undoubtedly Ochs didn't mind being called a journalist (his early shows billed him as the "singing journalist") but he remarked that it was upsetting to hear his idol (Dylan) saying that his songwriting efforts were in vain. The two wouldn't reconcile for nearly another ten years, with Ochs inviting Dylan to the benefit concert An Evening with Salvador Allende in 1974. Ochs also made a brief appearance in Dylan's film Renaldo & Clara, where he takes Dylan's hat before playing a set at Gerde's Folk City, which included his only serious cover of a Dylan song, "Lay Down Your Weary Tune." Somewhat aptly as a metaphor for their relationship, the concert footage cuts just as Ochs begins playing in what became the last film shot of him before his death.

An odd compilation choice: "Talking Pay TV"

In what must be the strangest track selection of a Phil Ochs song, "Talking Pay TV" inexplicably appears on the Smithsonian Folkways compilation Classic Protest Songs. Among the hundred or so Ochs protest songs the compilers could have chosen, "Talking Pay TV" appears here as the sole Ochs composition, completely out of place. Not only is it not a protest song, it was never released by Ochs during his lifetime, hence negating in any sense its status as a "classic" of the 1960s. As Ochs noted in the Broadside Tapes, the song was written on assignment as an advertisement for a local pay-per-view television channel. What it is doing among tracks like "Masters of War" and "We Shall Overcome" is anybody's guess.

Q&A: Phil Ochs NYC Venues

Q: What are some of the venues in New York City where Phil Ochs performed in the 1960s and 1970s?

Here's a list I compiled a few years ago:

The Bitter End - 147 Bleecker Street (between Thompson and LaGuardia), New
York City, NY

Kettle of Fish - 114 MacDougal Street, Greenwich Village, New York City, NY

Gaslight Cafe - 116 MacDougal Street, Greenwich Village, New York City, NY

Village Gate - corner of Thompson Street and Bleecker Street, Greenwich
Village, New York City, NY

Cafe Wha? - 115 MacDougal Street, Greenwich Village, New York City, NY

The Folklore Center - 110 MacDougal Street, Greenwich Village, New York
City, NY

Carnegie Hall - 881 Seventh Avenue, Midtown Manhattan, New York City, NY

Gerde's Folk City - 11 West 4th Street (corner of Mercer Street) - no longer
exists

Washington Square Park (40°43'51"N, 73°59'51"W) - located at the foot of
Fifth Avenue (site of War Is Over demonstration)

Che (Phil's short-lived bar) - corner of Broome Street and Mercer Street,
New York City, NY

Tavern-on-the-Green - Central Park at West 67th Street, New York City, NY

Central Park (40°46'55"N, 73°57'58"W) - Manhattan, New York City, NY

Interlude Cofeehouse (now the Bliss Gourmet cafe) - 8260 Austin Street,
Jamaica, NY

United Nations Headquarters - First Avenue between 42nd Street and 48th
Street, New York City, NY

Cooper Union - East Village, around Cooper Square and Astor Place (Third
Avenue & 6th-9th Streets), Lower Manhattan, New York City, NY

Columbia University (McMillin Auditorium, now Miller Theatre) - 2960
Broadway (at 116th Street), New York City, NY

New York University (Loeb Student Center) - Washington Square Campus, End of
Fifth Avenue, New York City, NY

Hunter College Auditorium - 69th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues,
New York City, NY

Strand Theatre - 714 Beach 20th Street (Central Avenue), Far Rockaway, NY

Madison Square Garden (Felt Forum) - 4 Pennsylvania Plaza, New York City, NY

Queens College - Kissena Boulevard, Flushing, NY

Max's Kansas City - 213 Park Avenue South between 17th and 18th, New York
City, NY

Bottom Line (now NYU) - 15 West Fourth Street, Greenwich Village, New York
City, NY

Philharmonic Hall (renamed Avery Fisher Hall in 1973) - corner of Columbus
Avenue and 65th Street, New York City, NY

Phil Ochs Live at the Troubadour 1970

"The sixties...started out as a dream, ended up as a nightmare" says Phil Ochs near the beginning of this live concert audience recording, made at the Troubadour in Los Angeles on February 1, 1970. It captures most of the two sets performed that day, which came at the end of a week-long stint at the famed club. In a precursor to the more familiar Gunfight at Carnegie Hall concert (that happened the following month), Phil is in a Presley gold lamé suit, attempting to mix Elvis with Che Guevara, something that appears to work better with this crowd that it did at Carnegie.

The set list is familiar to those who have heard the Carnegie Hall shows; however, "I've Had Her" from Pleasures of the Harbor makes a rare appearance with Lincoln Mayorga reprising his piano part (the song was all but abandoned in Ochs' latter-day concerts, and here he forgets some of the lyrics), as well "Pretty Smart on My Part" (brought out by request at the end of the first show's encore - he closes by saying "Down with Nixon, down with Nixon") and Buddy Holly's "Maybe Baby." Somewhat interestingly, the first verse of "I Ain't Marching Anymore" gets extended applause (the Vietnam War entering its 15th year by this point).

Here's the full track list:

Phil Ochs
Live at the Troubadour Nightclub
West Hollywood, California
February 1, 1970

First Generation recording from the master R2R tapes.

Disc One
Early Show
1. I’m Going to Say It Now *
2. Mona Lisa
3. Pleasures Of The Harbor
4. I Ain’t Marching Anymore
5. Oakie From Muskogee
6. Basket In The Pool
7. Jim Dean Of Indiana
8. Chords Of Fame *
9. Not Fade Away >
10. I’m Gonna Love You Too
11. Think It Over >
12. Oh Boy >
13. Everyday >
14. It’s So Easy >
15. Not Fade Away
16. Maybe Baby
17. Changes
18. There But For Fortune
19. Pretty Smart On My Part
Late Show
20. The Bells *
21. Danny Boy
22. Gas Station Women
Running Time: 70 minutes

Disc Two
1. Intro >
2. Crucifixion *
3. Outside of a Small Circle Of Friends
4. I’ve Had Her
5. My Kingdom For A Car
6. My Baby Left Me >
7. Ready Teddy >
8. Heartbreak Hotel >
9. I Want You, I Need You, I Love You >
10. All Shook Up >
11. Are You Lonesome Tonight >
12. My Baby Left Me
13. A Fool Such As I
14. No More Songs
15. Rhythms Of Revolution
Running Time: 75 minutes 54 seconds

* Incomplete