Various Artists – What’s That I Hear? The Songs of Phil Ochs

Phil Ochs’ voice never seemed a daunting instrument. It was his words, the 19th-century passion with which they were strung together, the political fury they expressed and, even, the ambition with which he sought to bring that message to a wider audience — but mainly it was his words that seemed most important.

Dylan’s rival, the topical folksinger who links Woody Guthrie to Billy Bragg, Ochs issued a series of records that have remained in print long after his 1976 suicide, despite modest sales. No surprise, then, that 28 of his songs have been chosen for a two-disc tribute, proceeds from which will benefit the ACLU of Southern California and Sing Out! magazine, the venerable folk organ.

Ochs’ songs are given a variety of treatments by the several generations of acoustic (nee folk) musicians, including Peter Yarrow, Iain Matthews, Arlo Guthrie, Tom Paxton, the Roches, John Wesley Harding, John Gorka, Sid Griffin & Billy Bragg, and Dave Van Ronk. Sadly, for the most part, the songs rarely survive that transition. Either Ochs is a less able writer than one had thought, or something is missing.

The principal surprise is how inextricably linked to Ochs’ voice these songs are. He didn’t have the idiosyncratic jazz cadence of a Willie Nelson, but possessed a distinctly Midwestern bite that — if this collection is any indication — was much more a part of the songs than one would have imagined. Hearing Karen Savoca’s well-rounded, dutifully mournful tones on the closing “No More Songs”, for example, seems somehow a misreading of the sense of the song. Indeed, too much of this reminds me of Odetta’s Gilbert & Sullivan take on folk songs. (The press-release-like blurbs hyping each artist in the liner notes set exactly the wrong tone as well.)

Not all of it is like that, of course. Peter Yarrow’s “There But For Fortune” is as spot-on as Rex Fowler’s penultimate reggae version of the same song is off. And the Roches’ “The Bells” is, predictably, a highlight.

It may simply be that we are too jaded a people now to approach these songs with the naive, innocent enthusiasm that cost Ochs his life. Or maybe these are just the wrong people singing them.