For our first detour I bring you Phil Ochs real first album. And to do so I now turn it over to David Cohen..... Another Side of Phil Ochs by David Cohen Copyright 2000 "I don't believe you. Liar!" Those were the words on the tip of my tongue as I heard Michael Ochs reiterate his assertion -- that there was a long lost Phil Ochs album. Well, not a Phil Ochs album exactly... It was 1998 and I was interviewing Michael Ochs, the well known record and photo archivist for a book about his brother, Phil Ochs. As part of my research for this book I had scoured every reference source I could find -- articles that Phil had written, articles about him, concert reviews, album reviews, interviews and live tapes spanning 1961-1975. I had immersed myself in his music and was fairly confident there was nothing significant that I had overlooked. Ok, we all know what pride cometh before now don't we? I asked Michael if he wasn't putting me on, playing a joke on the stodgy old archivist. He assured me he wasn't and repeated the few bits of information that he had gotten from Phil. As Michael told me, "I was writing a bio on him and was asking if his first record was "All The News" or the New Folks album on Vanguard. He laughingly told me about his 'real' first record. He swore me to secrecy when he told me about his early scrambling days in the pass-the-hat clubs of the Village." Soon after Phil had arrived in the New York City, in September 1962, he had appeared on an album of camp songs, standards, real Kumbaya time. As Michael recalled, "Phil was offered fifty dollars to record some campfire favorites in one session and was guaranteed that his name would never be used on the album." Michael thought that the album must have been released on a budget label, Forum, Parkway, Time, Cameo or any one of a dozen others. He was just sure that it wouldn't have been on a major label. The time frame was pretty tight. It would have had to have been between Phil's arrival in the Village in September of 1962 and the release of his first album on Elektra, All the News That's Fit to Sing, in April 1964. I was astounded that Michael didn't have a copy. He told me that Phil had never told him anything more about the album. In fact, Phil never even kept a copy for himself. Michael had tried to locate the album, utilizing his considerable connections in the music business. Eventually, he got sick of getting second rate camp song albums and gave up the hunt. I'll admit enjoying a challenge and thought that with the research tools I had to hand that I could probably find the album. I ran into a whole series of dead ends. I didn't know the name of the album or of the performer's name under which it was listed. I found dozens of campfire albums. Some were from the wrong time period. Others were by established performers and were ruled out. Some fit all the criteria, but when I was able to listen to them they were sorely lacking in Ochs' dulcet tones. The deadline for my book started to loom ever larger so I put the search aside. Once the book was published I felt I needed a little space from Phil Ochs and so shelved the quest, resigning myself to the fact that the album would most likely remain a 'footnote to history', as I had labeled the mystery at the end of the discography in my book . Still...it stayed in the back of my mind and when I was looking through my old papers I came across my original notes...the game was once again afoot. I started from scratch. The area with the most likely prospects seemed to be the record label. At least it was more limited than the hundreds of possibilities for album title and performer. A search on the internet located the very informative Both Sides Now website at Both Sides Now which has very extensive discographies for dozens of labels. The discographies also include descriptions and histories of the labels. I was immediately able to discount many of the labels as legitimate possibilities if, for example, they only released jazz recordings. Once I had pared the labels down to a workable number I started scouring each one in turn for possible clues. One after another each label came up empty. Until I hit Cameo, a Philadelphia budget label better known for Bobby Rydell, Dee Dee Sharp, Chubby Checker and a young Clint Eastwood (Rawhide's Clint Eastwood:Cowboy Favorites) it had been on Michael Ochs' original short list of possibles. A quick text search for 'camp' turned up a hit. Campers -- Camp Favorites (Cameo C-1047) 1963. So far everything seemed right. The subject, the cheesy performer listing, the label, the year. More searching failed to find any other albums by 'The Campers', another good sign. I was getting more excited, but a search of used record sites on-line failed to find any copies for sale. Undaunted, I turned to another venue. If the record could not be bought, perhaps it could be borrowed. The Worldcat Library Union catalog (a sort of uber-catalog that includes the catalogs of hundreds of libraries) located a copy, at the Bowling Green University. I was even more excited because I knew a music librarian who worked at Bowling Green, Bill Schurk. I had been in touch with Bill in conjunction with some research for the Ochs volume and had found him to be both knowledgeable and helpful. I immediately emailed my suspicions to Bill and waited, impatiently. A day later I had my answer. Bill had listened to the album and there was no doubt, "Whoa, Nellie!! Well, you are correct. It IS Phil's voice ringing out loud and clear!!" Or, as Sonny Ochs remarked once she heard the album, ""It's definitely Phil and quite a humorous find on your part. I can't imagine what he was thinking when he did it." Once I had gotten over the initial excitement I pressed onward in my quest. The sleeve only listed one performer by name, the excellent banjo player, Dick Weissman. I soon was in touch with Dick, hoping he could give me a little more insight about the album. Unfortunately, since he had recorded it thirty years before he couldn't remember too many details. Dick recalls being approached by an A&R person from Cameo while he was in New York (which certainly makes sense since Phil was also living there at the time), perhaps Dave Adelman. Dick only did the banjo tracks which were completed in one or two sessions and never was in the studio with the vocalists. The recording was done in New York. Dick thought that Happy Traum might have been another one of the Campers, but a call to Happy proved that this was not the case. The album itself is very straightforward. Over Dick Weissman's banjo, Phil and an unidentified female vocalist lead a group of younger singers perform songs which are probably familiar fare to many campers of the 1940's and 1950's. Most of the time the songs are performed group style, but occasionally Phil or the mystery woman will take lead for a verse. Amongst the chestnuts included on the setlist are: The Welcome Song ("You stick with us we'll stick with you, we'll see each other through and through"); We'll Build a Bungalow ("We'll build a shanty down in shanty town"); Gee Mom ("The biscuits up the mountain they say are mighty fine, but one dropped off the table and killed a pal of mine"); Friends Friends Friends ("The years may come and the years may go"); I'veGot Sixpence ("I've got sixpence jolly jolly sixpence"); Adam and Eve("Hey Eve, you're dynamic, you could start a panic...If any guy needs a harem I've got more ribs and I'll share em") Hand Me Down My Walkin' Cane ("I robbed a train and I got in jail and there ain't no one to go my bail cuz all my sins are taken away"). The liner notes are thoughtful, well-crafted and low key, "and for all, it will provide countless hours of listening pleasures...achieving effects rarely produced or heard on any recording." It's all a long way from Talking Vietnam, Bound for Glory or Too Many Martyrs and certainly no real surprise that Ochs was happy to take his paycheck for the session and leave it at that. If Phil's early work was JFK, his midrange LBJ and his later work Nixon, this album is pure Ike. Perhaps it's not strange that no one noticed this before, as Michael Ochs remarked, "The album was probably sold only in bargain bins for the same type of people who would buy polka or square dance music as a genre only. This type of record had a very limited shelf life and I doubt if many copies were pressed, let alone sold." Prospects seem dim for any sort of re-issue. Allen Klein bought Cameo in the 1960's and changed the name to Abkco (Allen B. Klein Co.). In spite of repeated promises since the 1980's for CD releases from Cameo masters nothing has been forthcoming. If Bobby Rydell and Chubby Checker are locked away in the Abkco vaults it seems very unlikely that a Phil Ochs curiosity will escape. Now, to find that song Phil wrote for the Cleveland Indians... Campers -- Camp Favorites (Cameo C-1047) 1963 Side 1 The Welcome Song [1:46] We'll Build a Bungelow [2:02] Polly Wolly Doodle [2:08] Gee Mom [2:13] Patsy Ory Ory Aye [2:11] Cannibal King [2:21] Side 2 Hambone [3:11] Friends Friends Friends [1:49] I've Got Sixpence [2:00] A Thousand Years Ago [2:10] Adam and Eve [2:05] Hand me Down My Walkin' Cane [2:01] All songs credited as "Traditional", Wyncote Music ASCAP.
When I first heard the Campers album my jaw hit the floor. Wow. I mean, I have seen Pete Seeger sing Polly Wolly Doodle with a bunch of kids, but PHIL?!? Yikes! When I asked Glover about it, he said Phil had a copy of it and that he thought it was funny as hell, albeit embarrassing to "The Singing Journalist" He only heard the album once in the apartment and Phil must have gotten rid of it. Phil did a good job keeping it off the radar. PS-I hear no guitar by Phil.
I'm a huge Phil Ochs fan. Rehearsals For Retirement is a a desert island vinyl for me. Side 2 has some of the most moving (and depressing) songs ever recorded.
RfR is my go-to Phil album as well, just excellent stuff. For his earlier more topical stuff I think that "A Toast to Those Who Are gone" beats his official albums from that era hands down. I suppose that at the time things happened quickly and he was always writing about newer stuff but in retrospect I think he let a lot of his great early material go in favor of newer but maybe weaker stuff.
It's a shocker.Phil's voice is unmistakeable.Once you start listening.you have to listen all the way through.It's fascinating in a perverse sort of way.Phil obviously is playing banjo (WTF?) here not guitar.
I love Phil and have really been getting into him lately, I love his early acoustics stuff but tend to prefer the more produced stuff like PotH. "I've Had Her" is one of the saddest songs I've ever heard. Few songs have moved me like that one.
A truly astounding song, I can't even begin to imagine what emotions triggered that one. It's apparently a vicious misogynist gripe about a woman who rejected him, or something else entirely, and even more traumatic. The arrangement/recording is extraordinary too. Phil is right in your face and real. A much later variation would be 'I Want You' be Elvis Costello. Similar emotional territory.
A masterpiece, abeit a flawed one due to the overwhelming arrangements. Phil threw everything at that record. Contains one of his most perfect recordings (the title track, quite beautiful), and a botched, overblown recording of what is his (and thus generally anyone's - Phil was that good) greatest song: 'Crucifixion'. Phil apparently wrote this song whilst on tour in the UK in 1965, in the back of van going up the A1. Stunning.
That's, sadly, the least realised of the later albums. Really rushed sounding. That it finishes with the beautiful 'Floods Of Florence' (which, due to the sound, could possibly be an out-take from 'POTH') is it's saving grace. 'Tape' is a manic album, probably reflecting Phil's mindset at the time and obviously recorded on the hoof, very hurriedly as he had so many things to do. He didn't stop for breath.
You will get an argument from me on that. An angry one at that. Phil and Larry Marks made an awesome masterpiece. The second guessing in Phil's ear was dead wrong and made things worse.
I love all his Elektra albums but, yeah, this is my least favorite. "When In Rome" is 13mins long! It does have some of his best singing.
The acoustic live version circa 'Gunfight At Carnegie Hall' cuts it dead IMHO, but I'm interested in your defence of it (the studio version). Phil knew it is was his greatest song from the word go - but they overplayed it getting it over IMHO. He must have sensed they'd overdone it quite quickly, hence it's (in some ways) sequel epic 'When In Rome' from 1968 is just Phil and acoustic guitar.
i got the cassette of Tape in California many years ago, and still have. Its a very listentable album..... but Love Me Im a Liberal, that stuff really doesnt do it for me.
Our official album of the moment is All The News. Our detour is the Camp Songs album. Next up: I Ain't Marching Anymore!
On Ochs' journalist albums: I actually love the topical material. As someone who wasn't alive at the time, those songs got me to seek out the history of what he was singing about. So he's still teaching listeners to this day!
an excellent point that I had all but forgotten all these years on after getting into him 13 years ago in high school.
Thanks for this thread! I hope this will get me to relisten to these albums for the first time in a while. My introduction to Phil was through the superb 2-LP "Chords of Fame" compilation that was released shortly after his death and included both the Elektra and A&M material. These first two Elektra albums had a checkered CD history with early CD releases of problematic audio quality. The 2001 double-CD release that paired these two albums, remastered by Dan Hersch as part of the Elektra Classics series, finally righted those wrongs and gave these albums their proper due on CD. I think this was a UK release. Alas, it's out of print and even used prices are very high, if Amazon prices are any indication: http://www.amazon.com/News-Thats-Sing-Aint-Marching/dp/B00005OKOS. The 2-guitar work on this album really comes through nicely on this CD. I had never heard of Camp Songs before, but even though I am a hard core Phil Ochs fan I think I'll pass on that. I do have 3 compilation CDs that I believe largely pre-date All the News: A Toast to Those Who Are Gone on Rhino, The Broadside Tapes 1 on Folkways, and The Early Years on Vanguard. Any plan to cover those in this album tour, maybe after the chronology of the original albums?
Yes those are all in the queue. Toast will be counted as a regular release. Demos and leftover tracks from Elektra to A&M. I DID miss one song though. When the Hannibal label reissued All The News back in the 80s, there was a change. With no explanation Knock On The Door was replaced with a new song by Phil and Danny. The song was not identified on the cover(it still said KOTD). There have been several titles batted around with Bullets Of Mexico being used most, and it now appears as a bonus track on the CD issue, restoring KOTD to its proper slot on the album.
