Ringing of Revolution

Folksinger and quintessential left-leaning activist Phil Ochs floated around the edges of Greenwich Village royalty in the ’60s, maintaining an on-again, off-again friendship/rivalry with Bob Dylan and writing such songs as “I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore” and “There But for Fortune,” which injected the influences of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger into topical subjects. Like Dylan, he later traded the straight folkie image for forays into new realms of pop music, adopting an orchestrated singer-songwriter persona later on and even donning a Nudie suit for the album Greatest Hits, which in fact contained all new material.

Related Content

• Harry Tuft on being inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame
  February 9, 2012
• Five misinformed rock songs
  April 4, 2012
• Jewel: "I've never held back because I'm a woman. I feel like I can accomplish anything a man can accomplish in my field.""
  March 27, 2012
• Wilco at Red Rocks June 22-23
  April 2, 2012
• Occupy Denver: Protester says FBI agents visited his home to investigate car bomb rumor
  December 20, 2011

More About

• Phil Ochs
• Bob Dylan
• Pete Seeger
• Greenwich Village
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Events Newsletter: What's happening in town? From underground club nights to the biggest outdoor festivals, our top picks for the week's best events will always keep you in on the action.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

Perhaps you can see where all this is leading. Ochs, the self-proclaimed “singing journalist,” never quite made it to the top; as the protest movements of the ‘60s morphed into more complex, violent and drug-addled scenarios, the earnest performer (who, it later turned out, was the subject of a 400-page FBI dossier) became jaded, cynical and, finally, officially bipolar. In 1976, at the age of 36, he hanged himself.

There’s a story worth telling in Ochs’s broken life, and that’s the premise of Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune</</b>i>, a new documentary by Kenneth Bowser; Joan Baez, Tom Hayden, Seeger, Sean Penn, Peter Yarrow, Christopher Hitchens and Ed Sanders are among the many talking heads appearing in the film. Phil Ochs opens today for a one-week run at the Denver FilmCenter, 2510 East Colfax Avenue; admission ranges from $7 to $9.75. For more information, go to www.denverfilm.org or call 303-595-3456.
March 4-10, 2011