I Dreamed I Saw Phil Ochs Last Night

My wife and I went to see a one-night-only showing of a new documentary about the 1960s folk singer Phil Ochs called "There But For Fortune" (www.philochsthemovie.com). The DVD is scheduled for a July 19 release, and I highly recommend purchasing this film.

Phil Ochs wrote topical songs, often using news articles from The New York Times or Newsweek for inspiration. The title of his first album, "All The News That's Fit To Sing", was a pun on the Times' debatable claim to contain "all the news that's fit to print". In some ways, Ochs was a musical version of Mort Sahl, who used newspaper articles as his jumping-off point for standup comedy routines (or, to update the analogy, think of Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show"). He was also an active participant in the movements to educate the public about those events, including the civil rights movement and U.S. military intervention in Vietnam, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. He performed at the street demonstrations outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and became angered and disillusioned by the violent reaction against those protests by the police, ordered by Democratic Mayor Richard Daley and endorsed by Democratic Presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey. Phil's next album cover featured a tombstone giving his place and date of death as Chicago, 1968.

The movie offers a wealth of Phil's musical performances, taken from TV shows as well as film from rallies, protests, and marches. Also featured are interviews with Joan Baez and other musicians. Tom Hayden, cofounder of Students for a Democratic Society and one of the "Chicago Eight" indicted by the Nixon administration for "conspiracy to riot" at the 1968 Democratic convention, puts Phil's politics in perspective with the times. Billy Bragg, the British singer/songwriter who wrote new lyrics for the tune "Joe Hill" as "I Dreamed I Saw Phil Ochs Last Night", is also interviewed in the film.

The film is an inspiring tribute to an overlooked artist who needs to be remembered, because his lyrics, sense of irony, and commitment to making this country live up to its claimed ideals are sadly needed as much today as they were during the turbulent decade of the 1960s.

Here's the official trailer for the movie: