Tag: Donovan

Mojo Reviews Challenge #007 – Phil Ochs – All The News That’s Fit To Sing

Front Cover copyWhere I dig into something I’ve not heard before, from the reviews section of old Mojo Magazines, on an irregular basis.

Phil Ochs
All The News That’s Fit To Sing
1964 – Elektra

It’s pretty interesting that I’ve never dived into the career of Phil Ochs. I love this era of music. The pre Beatles American folk scene – so well captured in ‘Inside Llewyn Davis‘. The period Chris Thile says that Greenwich Village was the world’s living room of beatniks and poets.

Phil Ochs is always held up as one of the best – and worst – examples of the era. His music managed to reach and connect people. But he doggedly refused to stray from his politics, even when the world moved on. His later years was also marked by personal problems and a struggle to change his sound.

But that is all later, as we are talking about his first album – All The News That’s fit To Sing. He is young, his voice is clear and his ideas are fresh. It is reviewed in Mojo alongside his second album ‘I Ain’t Marching Anymore‘.

My knowledge of Phil Ochs pretty much comes from his mentions in Bob Dylan biographies and his most vocal champion, Billy Bragg. So as I got this album, I also decide to watch the documentary ‘There But For Fortune‘. It is excellent and tells his full story. There’s also heaps of footage, none of which I can find full clips for online. My one big takeaway from the film – how many men did Bob Dylan psychologically destroy? Ochs, Donovan, Dave Van Ronk, the fictional Llewyn Davis….what a jerk!

The worst things about 60s folk are nowhere to be found. The songs are melodic and memorable, not flat and droning. His lyrics are often clever and memorable. But what is most interesting to my new ears is how much heart is in the songs. He genuinely wants to save lives. His sad to see the world fall apart. His anger would rise, but now it seems like a young man sad and trying to change the world.

That he can sustain the one-man-and-one-guitar schtick is impressive. He has a couple of things going for him. One More Parade, Too Many Martyrs and others are emotional, filled with genuine sadness and regret. Or he fills his words with so many ideas and images that there is always something new to discover.

It’s dated, but it was always going to. Mentions of Soviets, Vietnam and Nazis, it could only be the sixties. Yet, it’s powerful stuff, and one wonders why there aren’t equivalent songs about our times. How chickenshit are modern bands?

It is kinda crazy that this album has not come my way earlier. There was a few years here when I would have been responsible for this album. Having never been given a lovin reissue by Elektra, it has passed me by. Which begs the question – why? When even Judee Sill gets lavish reissues, surely this album is deserving of the same treatment? A reappraisal is overdue.

Hippies get a bad wrap, and protest music is out of fashion. It went out of fashion very soon after this album in fact. The Beatles would destroy Ochs. But right now, the world could still be changed by one-man-and-one-guitar. It still sounds pretty good today.

MOJO7_CrowdedHouse

Continuous Hit Music: Donovan – Greatest Hits

Continuous Hit Music – a weekly exploration of vinyl finds in 2012. Read ’em all here.

Artist: Donovan
Title: Greatest Hits
Original Release: 1969
Label: Columbia
Store: Rick Rack Retro, Summer Hill, 136 Smith St, Summer Hill
Price: $10
(Original US printing)

Rick Rack Retro seems to be one of a thousand cool second hand knicknack places. King St in Newtown is full of them. The growingly trendy suburb of Summer Hill has a couple too. And amongst the retro clothes and vintage kitsch cutlery, most of them have a box of records somewhere. Who knows how this stuff got there, but most of the time they have something worth buying.

The choice this time around was between a copy of Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits Volume 1, or this Donovan collection. Poor Donovan. Even in a box under some clothes in the suburbs of Australia, he’s up against Dylan. You’re lucky the Dylan sleeve was slightly more worn.

I should like Donovan more than I do. I very much enjoy all the songs of his I’ve come across. But even on CD, I only own this Greatest Hits title. If I could, I would like to blame the people at Sony Legacy for this. With no box set or deluxe reissues, my money went elsewhere, to newer reissues that seemed to be more important. Fuck, I’ve bought My Aim Is True like 5 times. God I’m a sucker.

Speaking of the CD, and blaming Sony Legacy, what the hell is wrong with the tracklisting? Looks as though the CD has mixed up sides 1 & 2 completely! Compared the the vinyl, the CD runs tracks 7-12, then 1-6 (then some extra tracks). I assume because the album cover lists the songs in another order again, that someone at Sony got confused and went with it. Poor Donovan.

The vinyl of this album, as I have also now discovered, features the superior ‘band’ version of ‘Catch the Wind’ and ‘Colours’, that were recorded for this album. Sony went and replaced them with the earlier versions on CD. The version of ‘Catch the Wind‘ when the big drums come in is THE version. The original clearly marks him out to be the sub-par Dylan he was to begin with. Poor Donovan.

Whatever the order, these tracks are still fantastic. There were so many cheap folkies in the 60s, but Donovan transcended that. He was trippier and a bit weirder. Which I guess mistakens his music for being softer, as it doesn’t sound very trippy today. Austraian fans have also had ‘Mellow Yellow’ ruined by that TV ad for Caramello chocolates. Poor Donovan.

Mismanagement and history aside, the songs are still fantastic. In addition to ‘Catch the Wind’, there is ‘Sunshine Superman’, ‘Wear Your Love Like Heaven’ and more. For a distilled, punchy, 12 track collection, it’s hard to go past it.

I see that Sony released a deluxe version of Sunshine Superman last year. Maybe it’s time I found out more about his catalogue. I have many friends who love him. Noel Gallagher named his kid after him. And there doesn’t seem to be a Bob Dylan reissue on the horizon.