Phil Ochs 'There But For Fortune'!

I watched the PBS Documentary on Phil Ochs titled 'There But For Fortune' last week and have been haunted by it ever since. Don't get me wrong. It's a great show and you should take the opportunity to review it. Here's a link American Masters - Phil Ochs .

The show is haunting to me for a couple of reasons. I was in NYC during the same time period as Phil Ochs. I traveled to many of the same neighborhoods, bars and cafes, listening to the folk singers of the day, including Ochs, Dylan, Baez and others. I, along with a couple of compadres, sang on the street, on top of trucks, in apartments, at parties and at protests and arrests. It was as they say, a different time. Now none of this is to say that I was in any way as good as any of the folks I mentioned. I certainly wasn't. But good wasn't really the issue. It was the spirit and the commitment of the time.

But Ochs, he was a genius. A writer of songs who told the news stories of the day with passion and simple truth and with rhythm and rhyme. The politics of the story didn't matter as much as the truth or the justice that was required. There are phonies and manipulators who are part of every movement and cause but Phil Ochs was the real deal. He believed in everything he wrote. He believed in the causes he sang with and about. He wasn't just there at various demonstrations, he led many of them. He gave people the umph and the juice that they needed to keep it up. He told stories, he sang stories and he made stories mean something to a generation.

As with many geniuses, Phil Ochs had his own demons. Alcohol and depression took their toll and eventually Phil couldn't take it any more. He would have been 70 now but he never made it. There was certainly more news fit to be sung. I'm sure today that he'd be singing about the Russians and the Chinese vetoing sanctions on Syria for massacring 200 of its own people. He'd have a song about hydro fracking and airline ticket pricing and service or lack of it. He'd be singing about the 1% and the 99% and he wouldn't let Obama off easy either. That's my take at least. That's why he's missed. Watch the documentary. You'll miss him too.