PHIL OCHS, Avery Fisher Hall, New York, April 1974.

Fifty years ago this week, as Melody Maker’s man in New York, I was at the Avery Fisher Hall to review a concert by Phil Ochs, whose LA apartment I’d rented for three months the previous year. This unusual situation, about which I’ve written at some length in my forthcoming memoir, offered me a unique insight into Phil’s world, instilling in me a warm feeling towards him and his music that lingers to this day. 

    I saw more concerts than I can possibly remember while I lived in New York, and the week I saw Phil I also reviewed shows by Captain Beefheart and The New Riders, all of which can be found on the Caught In The Act pages in MM dated April 27, 1974. I saw Phil perform only twice, this concert and another in New York’s Central Park in the summer of 1975. Here’s what appeared in MM 50 years ago this week. 

The day of the protest singer is not quite over, even if his warnings were ignored in the sixties, and artists like Phil Ochs will always have a platform on which to air their leftist views and criticism of the current US administration.

Ochs gave a sell-out show at the Avery Fisher Hall in the Lincoln Centre last week and was a resounding success. He was an original New York protest/folkie when Dylan walked the streets of Greenwich Village and this alone gives him an authority that more recent protesters will never have.

Each song was linked with the kind of rap that could have him deported, but the audience lapped it up. His most damning statement – that Kennedy’s killing really was a right wing plot by the establishment – struck home harder than most of his musical offerings. 

Ochs is a shabby, portly fellow with short hair and gold rimmed glasses. He looks like an unkempt, underpaid college professor. His guitar, which he doesn’t play well, is old and battered and the strings buzz at certain frets. There’s strong chance he hasn’t re-strung it in many a year.

Looking, then, as if he’d just walked in off the street after an hour’s busking on the subway, Ochs delivered a series of songs in which the lyrics mattered far more than the vocal or musical attributes of the performer. Hard hitting lines were applauded in mid-song and there was a respectful silence so that his messages could get through. 

He’s written some pretty tunes too. He opened with his charming song about singing bells, and followed that up with a trilogy of songs written by artists who had all spent time in jail and written about the experience. ‘There But For Fortune’, his own song, was the highlight. 

Och’s protest songs sound awfully dated in 1974, however. ‘I’m Gonna Say It Now’ and ‘Outside A Small Circle of Friends’, for example, are both songs in which couplets at the end of each verse are repeated, rather like ’Blowin’ In The Wind’, in fact, and written to encourage a group of singers or the audience in a club to join in at the appropriate moment. This was all the rage 12 years ago but appears a bit dated today. 

The gold lamé jacket* appeared for an encore but there was none of the rock and roll Phil performed at the controversial Carnegie Hall concert two years ago. His voice has deepened as a result of an attack with intent to rob during his recent stay in Africa. He was nearly strangled, apparently, and lucky to escape with his life. 

Had he not escaped, the US would have lost an outspoken but sincere critic. After the show he invited one and all backstage to discuss his views, and several hundred accepted the offer.

* This was probably the same gold lamé suit that I tried on one day while I lived in Phil’s flat in LA. It was far too big for me - but it might fit me now. 

PHIL OCHS IN CENTRAL PARK

Recently granted access to a cache of Melody Makers from the 1970s, I was pleased to find this in the issue dated May 24, 1975 – my review of an unusual concert in New York’s Central Park on May 11. Phil Ochs, of course, was my absentee landlord when I lived in his apartment in Los Angeles during the latter part of 1973, an arrangement enabled through his brother Michael, and for this reason I have always felt an affinity with this singer, songwriter and hero of the American protest movement. 

It was the croaky, off-tune voice of Phil Ochs singing ‘The War Is Over’ that brought a huge crowd of Sunday afternooners to their feet in Central Park at the weekend, reliving memories of an earlier occasion when this song was sung on the streets of New York. 

        Ochs was the central figure in a free concert planned to celebrate the end of the war in Vietnam and although he recruited a host of artists to appear on the bill alongside him (Paul Simon, Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Peter Yarrow, Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton and others), it was Phil’s rendering of three essential period pieces that set the mood for an afternoon graced not only by fine weather but with a sense of achievement for an event well organised.

        Phil, who admits his voice is shot and whose recent creativity has slumped to an all-time low, is something of a legendary figure in New York/Village/political/folkie circles. He put the bill together for this show, designed a poster (above) and duetted with Joan Baez on a moving rendition of ‘There But For Fortune’, perhaps his best-known song.

        Unrehearsed and off-key, Phil stood up to sing ‘I Ain’t Marching Any More’ with the determination of a political candidate. “My voice ain’t too good these days,” he admitted. “And I probably can’t hit the high notes any more. But we’ll try it anyway.”

        The crowd joined in on the choruses and the years fell away to the period when it was hip to protest against the hostilities in the Far East. With Baez, he was hesitant (it was the first time the two – songwriter and hitmaker – had ever duetted on ‘There But For Fortune’) but they traded lines across Phil’s Martin; it wasn’t the moment for musical subtlety anyway.

I found this picture of Phil & Joan at the event online. It is credited to Jean Pierre Laffont. 

        Ochs closed with ‘The War Is Over’, relating how the song was originally written during a demonstration in New York’s Washington Square some seven years ago. On that occasion Ochs and various colleagues decided to declare the Vietnam offensive over themselves. Slipping into a lower octave for the verses, Och’s strained at the throat to hit the higher notes without much success. Again, it didn’t matter. The feel was what counted.

        Paul Simon was the biggest star of the day, John Lennon having excused himself on the grounds of “not being in a singing condition at the present time”. Lennon probably declined to attend because of his decision to lie low while the courts decide his future in the US. Publicity surrounding his appearance at this kind of event would do more harm than good. There was a rumour that George Harrison would show, but he never did.

        Paul Simon, never the spontaneous artist, looked his usual nervous self. He opened with a flawless rendering of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ while photographers literally fought to snap his profile. He received a tremendous ovation but looked hesitantly around him for encouragement from the other artists waiting to appear.

        Attempting a tune-up, he slid into ‘American Tune’, a particularly appropriate song but it never got off the ground. While tuning his guitar and singing at the same time, he hastily decided to abandon the song – which was beginning to drag – and liven up the proceedings with the jerky intro to ‘Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard’.

        He completed about half this song before giving up on the guitar, bowing and picking up his young son Harper, and encouraging him to say ‘peace’ into the microphone. He did just that and was rewarded with a cheer that rivalled his famous daddy.

        “I wasn’t quite prepared for that,” a flustered Simon told me backstage while being trodden underfoot by yet more cameramen. He made a hasty getaway.

        Joan Baez sang a version of ‘Joe Hill’ which reminded me of the live Woodstock album, and was joined by Peter Yarrow for a fine version of ‘Blown’ In The Wind’. The audience responded as if Dylan himself was up on stage, singing the choruses and even cheering the end of each stanza.

        Other artists had their chance to sing a couple of numbers. Richie Havens sang a lengthy ‘Freedom’, Sister Odetta, Pete Seeger and Tom Paxton all came up with a couple of songs and Patti Smith, folk poet and totally original rock performer, put over two pieces before her biggest-yet audience. She also brought greetings from Stevie Wonder in the form of a cassette recording which, unfortunately, couldn’t be played.

        Between acts there were political speakers who, for the most part, tended to drag proceedings to a deathly crawl. Every tub thumper with a cause was allowed to air their views and, consequently, topics that ranged from the American Indian Movement to the struggle within trade unions were all debated from the platform. The majority of speeches, however, dealt with the celebration to mark the liberation of Vietnam and all speakers showered plenty of praise on the Viet Cong.

        Advertisements for the event had promised a minimum of speeches but this was forgotten as a host of personalities, from deserters to mothers who had lost their sons in the conflict followed each other to the microphone. There was even a telephone conversation with some Vietnamese arrivals who didn’t speak English. Quite fatuous. 

        The speeches actually took up the bulk of the afternoon and it was a long afternoon, stretching from midday until sunset when Central Park is traditionally taken over by ne’er do wells and winos seeking a berth for the night.

        “It was a success, I think,” Phil Ochs told me a couple of days later. “We raised enough money to pay for the event with a little left over to send to Vietnam, and I was pleased everyone showed up. I called Paul Simon personally and knew he would show because he had to pass through the city that day on his way from Long Island to New Jersey.” 

PHIL OCHS - Living In His Apartment, '73

In October 1973, I was sent to LA to become the US correspondent for Melody Maker, the London-based weekly music paper. At first I lived in the Chateau Marmont but that was temporary and I needed to find somewhere else. It was therefore fortunate that one night I was introduced to Michael Ochs, brother of Phil, a music archivist PR. I happened to mention that I needed a place and he suggested Phil’s apartment, just across Santa Monica Boulevard at the bottom of Doheney; a convenient walk from the Troubadour and Dan Tana’s, the Italian restaurant next door where music biz types hung out. 

        Michael explained to me that Phil was in Africa, seeking out revolutionaries with whom to write and sing, and was unlikely to return for at least three months. His apartment, at 8812 Rangeley Avenue, a quiet, tree-lined, one-way street, was on the top right of a building divided into four flats and it suited me to a tee. 

I moved in a few days later and found myself living in Phil’s world. His record collection was falling out of a dozen cardboard boxes crammed beneath a dining table in his living room and his shelves were stocked with interesting books, mostly political but one that caught my eye, and which I’ll always remember, was The Sexual History of The World War by Magnus Hirschfeld, with mouth-watering chapters on ‘Eroticism of Nurses’, ‘Sensuality in the Trenches’, ‘Army Brothels’, ‘Behind The Lines Lust’ and ‘Debauchery Back Home’. In reality it was a rather dry academic study. 

        In Phil’s closet was the gold lamé suit, modelled on the one debuted by Elvis in 1957, that he had worn as an ironic gesture for a concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall. I tried it on once but it was far too big for me. Talking of Elvis, among the many books on his shelves was Elvis by Jerry Hopkins, the first and then the only serious biography of Presley. Reading the book inspired me to write to Col Tom Parker, his manager, c/o RCA Records, requesting an interview, and though I was assured by RCA’s press flunky that the letter was forwarded, Parker didn’t even have the courtesy to reply. 

I stayed in Phil’s flat for two more months and wrote about the musicians of LA on Phil Ochs’ portable typewriter, sitting in his den opposite a page from a newspaper, cut out and Sellotaped to the wall, that advertised the best ‘round the world’ in Hollywood. I never found out what ‘round the world’ was but the illustration on the advert suggested it involved a female tongue and would probably make Queen Victoria blush. 

        I wrote about the Eagles, Linda Rondstadt, Jackson Brown and many more, on Phil’s typewriter on Phil’s desk in Phil’s den. I also wrote about English acts passing through: The Who on their problematic Quadrophenia tour, Rod Stewart & The Faces at the height of their powers and John Lennon, on the run from Yoko and other assorted demons, who was shacking up with Yoko’s lovely Chinese assistant May Pang at a Bel Air mansion owned by Ode Records boss Lou Adler. 

        All the while I soaked up the character of Phil, a man whose music I barely knew when I arrived but whose own records I listened to while I sat in his chair and ate from his plates. I was familiar with his best-known song, ‘There But For Fortune’, but the rest was a mystery at first. I found the album which featured Phil on the cover wearing the gold lamé suit and chuckled at the title, Gunfight At Carnegie Hall. I didn’t know then that Phil, essentially a strident protest singer, had performed a set of rock’n’roll covers at Carnegie Hall and was barracked for his trouble.

        Pictures of Phil were everywhere and I decided he had a kindly face. Evidently untroubled by any sartorial leanings, he looked slightly shabby, even on his LP sleeves, so the gold lamé must have come as a complete shock to his followers, like Robert Plant in a grey business suit or Mick Jagger with a crew cut. I came to realise, through reading his books and listening to his records, that he was a deeply committed left-winger, probably far more so than any of his contemporaries who came out of Greenwich Village ten years earlier. Although he had a sense of humour, he was a serious radical. In an earlier era he’d have been proscribed like those in the movie industry who fell foul of Senator Joe McCarthy in the Fifties. The closest contemporary musician to whom I can compare him now is Billy Bragg.

     Thus did I get to know a man that I’d never met, and whom I thought I’d never meet since during the first week in December MM editor Ray Coleman ordered me to New York where it was much easier to do this strange but wonderful job. I told Michael that I was quitting the flat and he said that it didn’t matter as he was expecting Phil back soon anyway. In the event he came back sooner than either of us expected; so it was that on the very last night of my occupation of his flat, my last night in LA, Phil Ochs himself came barging into my life.

     I had just emerged from the bathtub and was preparing to go out on my last night on the town with my LA girlfriend. I was in the bedroom and I heard the front door opened with a key. With only a towel wrapped around my waist, I walked down the corridor towards the living room and there he was. I recognised him instantly. He didn’t look well. He was overweight, unkempt and sweating. He carried two plastic bags full of cans of beer and he sat down and opened one. It wasn’t the first he’d had that night.

     “Michael told me you would be here,” he said. “I just came by to collect some stuff.”

     “That’s fine,” I said. “Pleased to meet you Phil.”

     “Are you going out?” he asked.

     “Yes. I need to finish getting dressed.”

     “OK. Sorry to barge in.”

     “It’s your flat. But I’m leaving tomorrow.”

     “I know. Michael told me.”

     He looked around his living room and saw that nothing much had changed. Then he went over to the stereo and put on an album of classical music, very loud, fortissimo. Then he switched on the TV news and cranked up the volume so that it could be heard above the music. Then he picked up a telephone and made a call, yelling into the phone. The din was far, far louder than anything I might have created in the previous three months. Phil drained his beer, threw the can on the floor and opened another, and then another. The music and TV blared on and when I was dressed and back in the living room I sussed that he was ringing round trying to find a bed for the night. He virtually ignored me. After about five calls he found one, and promptly left as suddenly as he arrived.

     “I gotta rush,” he shouted, gathering up the bags of beer cans. “See you around.”

     He slammed the door behind him and I turned off the stereo and TV and sat down. The silence was deafening. I’d wanted to tell him about how I’d enjoyed living in his flat, about how I’d enjoyed his records, about how I’d taken advantage of his library. I wanted to say that I was genuinely grateful for having had the opportunity to live among his possessions and that it had been an enlightening experience for me. But he was gone.

* * *

I didn’t see Phil Ochs again until shortly before he died. Aside from a few short months in London, I’d been living in New York almost all the time since we first met at his flat, and I’d become a bit of regular at the music clubs around Bleecker Street where Phil also tended to hang out. He spotted me in the Bottom Line one night and came lurching over, full of plans for some benefit concert for some left-of-centre cause that he wanted to promote at Shea Stadium. It seemed pretty outrageous to me. He was drunk, of course. I saw him two or three more times over the next few weeks, in early ’75. He always looked dishevelled, a bit of a lost soul, and I got the distinct impression he was the kind of guy that people might prefer to avoid, someone who’d somehow outstayed his welcome.

     And then, in April, I heard he’d hung himself. I reported on his memorial concert at the Felt Forum where dozens of his contemporaries came up and sang his songs and read eulogies. It was a moving occasion and I have no doubt that many of those present, performers as well as acquaintances like myself, felt they could have done more for Phil in his final years.