"I went to New York to become the best songwriter in the country," said the legendary folk icon Phil Ochs, "... then I met Bob Dylan and I decided that I'd be the second best." Although he never came close to achieving the levels of stardom of Dylan, Ochs left his own mark as a songwriter, guitar picker and strident political voice, and inspired scores of artists, including Neil Young, Billy Bragg and even Lady Gaga, who covered his song 'The War Is Over' in 2016.
Born in El Paso, Texas, Ochs grew up playing the clarinet, singing along to Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly songs on the radio and watching John Wayne, Marlon Brando and Gary Cooper in the movies. He initially studied journalism at Ohio State University, but started writing songs with his roommate Jim Glover and local folkie Bob Gibson, and soon headed to Greenwich Village, New York and the burgeoning counter-culture scene. He made his first appearance at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963, and as the Vietnam War raged his songs 'We Ain't Marching Any More', 'Too Many Martyrs' and 'Power and the Glory' became anthems of the peace movement and a soundtrack to many student protests and civil rights marches. A self-described 'singing journalist' with a rebel spirit, Ochs claimed that many of his brilliantly crafted topical songs were inspired by stories that he'd read in Newsweek and, along with Dylan, was seen as a natural heir to Woody Guthrie.
As the decade wore on he became angrier and more radical and his song 'Small Circle of Friends' was a particularly withering take down of people's apathy, telling of the murder of Kitty Genovese, a 28-year-old woman who was stabbed to death in Queens, New York, while 38 bystanders turned their heads away without even calling the police. Tensions heightened further with the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, and Ochs was at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago as part of the 'Yippie' protests, which descended into a riot. The events had a major impact on Ochs, and the cover of his next album 'Rehearsals for Retirement' pictured Ochs' tombstone which read: "Phil Ochs (American). Born: El Paso, Texas, 1940. Died: Chicago, Illinois, 1968".
By 1970 he'd changed direction and taken to imitating his early rock & roll heroes, wearing a shiny gold suit and recording with members of The Byrds and Elvis Presley's backing band on his album 'Greatest Hits'. He didn't give up on politics, though, performing at John Lennon's benefit gig for poet John Sinclair, organising a concert to protest about the military coup in Chile in 1973 and leading a rally in Central Park to mark the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.
After years of drinking heavily and suffering from manic depression, his mental health began to deteriorate. Out of money and diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he spent his final days living with his sister Sonny in Far Rockaway, New York, before committing suicide in 1976, aged 35.
