Paying tribute to life of '60s folkie Phil Ochs
by Stephen Holde, denverpost.com
March 4th 2011 1:00 AM
To say that the 1960s folk singer Phil Ochs dreamed big is to understate the
huge scope of his ambition.
As recalled in Kenneth Bowser's respectful, nonmaudlin documentary portrait,
"Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune," Ochs moved to New York in the early '60s
intending to be the best songwriter in the country. After meeting Bob Dylan,
Ochs was forced to revise his opinion of his own potential to "second best."
Even before Ochs discovered folk music and left-wing politics through Jim
Glover, his fellow student at Ohio State University, he was in the thrall of
larger-than-life cultural symbols, from Elvis Presley to Western movie stars
like John Wayne and Gary Cooper, who embodied the concept of a world-saving
hero. Not coincidentally, the folk-music movement in its early days had the
same messianic sense of its own importance.
The Dylan-Ochs connection, however friendly, had its tormenting underside.
While Ochs worshiped Dylan (who is not interviewed in the film), his idol
refused to pay him much respect.
Ochs, who committed suicide in 1976 at 35, never understood that there was a
limited audience for brainy musical editorials composed in a rigid singsong
mode and sung in a droning, nasal voice with a modest range and faltering
intonation.
Ochs' involvement with the civil- rights and antiwar movements and his
presence at the 1968 Democratic National Convention make "There But for
Fortune" not only a biography but a running history of the period's
left-wing activism. Besides family members, the documentary's talking heads
include Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Tom Hayden, Judy Henske, Billy Bragg, Ed
Sanders, Christopher Hitchens and Sean Penn.
The earnestness of Ochs' broadsides was often leavened by a sarcastic humor
that he sometimes directed at himself. His 1966 song "Love Me, I'm a
Liberal" assailed the slightly left-of-center politics of those who wept
over the Kennedy assassinations but believed that Malcolm X "got was what
coming" when he was killed.
Poking fun at his lust for fame, Ochs, who never had a Top 40 hit, made a
"greatest hits" album of new songs in 1970, for which he posed, Elvis-like,
in a gold-lame suit and followed it with a Carnegie Hall concert at which he
wore the same outfit.
World travel followed, including trips to Chile, where he befriended the
folk singer Victor Jara, who was later murdered in the military coup, and to
Africa, where he was mugged and nearly killed while walking on a Tanzanian
beach.
Ochs' bipolar illness, worsened by alcoholism, led to acute paranoia and
eventually to suicide.
It seems there was no escaping his demons.
"phil ochs: there but for fortune"
Not rated. 1 hour 38 minutes. Written and directed by Kenneth Bowser; music
by Phil Ochs. With Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Tom Hayden, Judy Henske, Billy
Bragg, Ed Sanders, and Sean Penn. Opens today at the Denver
FilmCenter/Colfax.
Original Page: http://www.denverpost.com/movies/ci_17523561
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