At last, a documentary gives Phil Ochs his due

By Susie Davidson

Special to the Advocate

Kenneth Bowser credits his daughter Samantha for helping to get his latest film, “Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune,”　out of the can and into the theaters. It was no small feat.

On video clips posted on the film’s official Web site, he says he grew up listening to Ochs songs: “Phil’s music was the soundtrack to my life.” When he played British musician Billy Bragg’s song “I Dreamed I Saw Phil Ochs Last Night” one day, his daughter asked him who Phil Ochs was.

Bowser, 59, told the [start ital.]Advocate [end ital.]that Samantha, whom he described as “Jewishly observant,” “was very influential in keeping me going forward during the times I lost hope the film would ever get made.”

Fans of Ochs had nearly given up hope as well. Many other productions about the mercurial, groundbreaking ’60s singer/activist had come to naught over the years. Some, such as a play by British “gangsta folk” artist John Wesley Harding and a musical by Toronto-based troubadour Zach Stevenson, “The Ballad of Phil Ochs,” were squelched by Ochs’ younger brother, rock archivist Michael Ochs of LA, who managed Phil’s musical career and had hoped for a film starring Sean Penn.　

But following Samantha’s prodding, Bowser began working with Michael Ochs and Ochs fan Michael Cohl, former chairman of Live National Entertainment. The three bankrolled the years-long project.

A documentary, film and television producer, Bowser has worked on subjects from Frank Capra to John Wayne to “Saturday Night Live” retrospectives.

He tells the story of Ochs and his times through videos, photos, clippings, interviews and, of course, Ochs’ heralded songs.

Born in El Paso, Texas in 1940, Ochs was raised in a secular Jewish family. His father, Army physician Jacob Ochs, suffered from mental illness, a problem Phil would also endure. His mother, Gertrude, was a Scottish Jew from an observant family, according to Phil’s sister Sonia (Sonny) Ochs, who spoke by phone from her home in upstate New York. “I vividly remember using the wrong towel to dry the dishes once.”

Sonny – who is a school teacher and folk promoter (she has run weekly “Phil Ochs Song Nights” since 1983) – also recalled the three young Ochs standing outside synagogue on Yom Kippur, seeing which of them could hold out the longest without eating.

Jacob Ochs’ family came from Mlawa, Poland. “My paternal grandmother was one of seven kids, and at one point the Russian army sent a sergeant to come and get her brother, which was the equivalent of a death sentence – when a Jew was sent to the Russian army, he never came back,” Sonny Ochs said. The family got the recruiter drunk, dressed the boy in his sister’s clothes, and snuck him out to safety.

Phil Ochs attended the Staunton Military Academy in Virginia and Ohio State University. He moved to Greenwich Village in 1962. Like a singing Mort Sahl, he carried newspapers around, and released “All the News That’s Fit to Sing” on Elektra in 1964, later moving, under brother Michael’s tutelage, to A&M. As his star rose, even filling Carnegie Hall, Ochs never forgot his roots, and was ubiquitous at rallies for peace, and workers’ and civil rights.

His involvement in the 1968 Democratic Convention protests landed him a spot testifying at the Chicago 7 trial. These actions also earned him a 429-page FBI file.

A gold-lame-suit tour and a facetiously titled “Greatest Hits” album of new songs were ill-fated ventures. And the demons were at it, increasingly manifesting in alcohol-fueled episodes and a fake identity of “John Train.” Ochs ended it all by hanging himself at his sister’s house.

“Phil Ochs was the political songwriter Bob Dylan should have been,” says Billy Bragg in one clip (notables in the film also include Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Christopher Hitchens, Peter Yarrow, Ed Sanders, Penn, and others).

“Ochs’ music embodies the punk ethos,” said James F. Kraus of Boston’s South End, an　artist/illustrator and longtime rock DJ whose “Kick Out the James!” airs on Boston College’s WZBC 90.3 FM Friday mornings.

“Make your music on your own terms. Express your anger and contempt of the status quo – Ochs’ musical themes are lost in today’s sanitized, hyper-corporate,　commercial radio playlists,” said Kraus. “His music is relinquished　to the only place it still resonates – non-commercial, independent, community radio.”