Holocaust day - it is happenning now in Iraq, Rwanda,

and everywhere. But this genius understood more than anyone understood in the 20 th century and WE-- YOU AN ME, AND YOU AND ME, DESTROYED HIM. But he lives - his music will never date and die. Now hear this:-

Phil Ochs: With Us Still
by Susie Davidson
Advocate Correspondent
Twenty-five years ago, on April 9, 1976, after Phil Ochs took his life at the age of 35, New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug called for a commemorative week.
"Phil Ochs’ poetic pronouncements," she read into the Congressional Record, "were part of a larger effort to galvanize his generation into taking action to prevent war, racism, and poverty. He left us a legacy of important songs that continue to be relevant."
A preeminent voice of protest and self-titled "singing journalist" during the Vietnam era, Philip David Ochs was born December 19, 1940 in El Paso, Texas to Jacob and Gertrude Ochs, the second of three children.
Ochs senior was the son of traditionally religious Polish refugees, who met his also-Jewish wife in her native Scotland while he was attending medical school with her brother. The family lived in Jacob’s mother Fanny Ochs’ Kosher home in the Lower East Side while Jacob served in the Army. He was discharged for manic depression, and was relegated to the field of institutional TB care in Far Rockaway, Perrysburgh NY, and, eventually, Columbus, Ohio. Moody and withdrawn, Phil became, under his mother’s encouragement, a superb clarinetist at local conservatories. When he was assaulted for being a "Jew-boy" he fought back, and his attacker became his sole friend.
In 1959 while at Ohio State, Ochs, whose then-heroes were John Wayne, James Dean and Elvis, was introduced to union politics through his roommate Jim Glover’s father. He and Jim formed the group The Sundowners. In a slight that would set the stage, so to speak, for future performance as well as professional discrimination, he was passed over for editor of the student paper because of his political preoccupation. Disgusted, he moved on to Greenwich Village and its folk scene of the early 1960’s, which included rising luminaries such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Tom Paxton, Dave Van Ronk and Eric Andersen.
Where Dylan branched off into electronica, Phil continued to hone the craft of topical songwriting. "Before the days of television and mass media," he told Broadside Magazine in 1962, "the folksinger was often a traveling newspaper spreading tales through music. There is an urgent need for Americans to look deeply into themselves and their actions, and musical poetry is perhaps the most effective mirror available. Every newspaper headline is a potential song."
Phil met and married Alice Skinner, with whom he had his only child, Meegan, that year.
Following a performance in the Newport Folk Festival in 1963, he released his first LP, "All the News That’s Fit to Sing", the first of 13 major label releases. Emulating Dylan’s move toward rock and roll and personal songwriting, his efforts never quite took off as well, though then-and-now fans attest to their comparative superiority.
"I Ain’t Marching Anymore," "(Outside of a) Small Circle of Friends," "Changes" and "Crucifixion", among many other Ochs masterpieces, certainly support this claim as they profoundly and exquisitely reflect both the inner and outer times of his life.
Phil was not actively Jewish. However, Jewish themes, in the Ochsian sociopolitical vein, are in his work. In "The Harder They Fall," from Tape From California (1968), he sang:
"Mother Goose is on the loose
Stealing lines from Lenny Bruce
Drinking booze and killing Jews
Gimme my Jews, gimme my booze, gimme my Jews
Six million jingles can't be wrong
From the dragon to the Viet Cong
Fairy tales have come along"
In "Love Me, I’m a Liberal," (Chords of Fame, 1976), he satirized these pseudo-revolutionaries:
"I read New Republic and Nation
I've learned to take every view
You know I've memorized Lerner and Golden
I feel like I'm almost a Jew
But when it comes to times like Korea
There's no one more red, white and blue
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal"

Nuff said
Gordon