Sonny Ochs To Speak At Avon Theatre

On Wednesday, August 17, at 7:30 pm the Avon Theatre will present director Ken Bowser’s documentary Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune. On hand to take questions from the audience after the critically acclaimed film is shown will be the artist’s sister Sonny Ochs.

Phil Ochs was a singer/songwriter who was an important figure in the folk music scene in Greenwich Village in the 1960’s. Ochs wrote and performed topical songs, with titles like Draft Dodger Rag and Love Me, I’m A Liberal, that were often very funny and always socially conscious. He appeared regularly on the same stages as other giants of the day, like Joan Baez, Peter, Paul and Mary and Bob Dylan (who once threw Ochs out of his car for reacting too honestly to a song that Dylan was writing).

Unfortunately, Ochs suffered from manic depression and took his own life in 1975 while living with his older sister, Sonny. Since the 1980’s Sonny Ochs has worked to keep her brother’s song catalogue alive by organizing a popular series of Phil Ochs Song Nights featuring well known artists like Oscar Brand, Tom Paxton, Suzanne Vega among many others (causing one performer to quip, “Phil Ochs draws a larger audience dead than we do alive.”). She spent many years as a junior high school English teacher in the New York City school system. Now she devotes herself to producing live concerts, volunteering in various capacities at folk festivals and conferences and she hosts a monthly radio program on WRPI.

PATCH: Your brother found his voice as a social activist – and learned to play the guitar – while he was in college?

OCHS: That’s correct.

PATCH: Was he at all musical before that?

OCHS: He was an excellent clarinet player in high school.

PATCH: There are quite a few laughs in his song lyrics. Where did that sense of humor come from?

OCHS: It was almost a defensive thing in our family. We had probably the most critical mother on the face of the planet. So, we had to learn to see the humor in things. Otherwise it’d kill you.

PATCH: Do you have a favorite song of his?

OCHS: When I’m Gone. A lot of people love that song so much. It speaks to them. They’ve even told me about people who’ve requested that it be played at their funerals. We close every concert by doing it as an encore. It’s become my philosophy: you can’t do it when you’re gone, so you better do it while you’re here.

PATCH: Do you think that a lot of what your brother was writing about could be applied to what’s going on in the world today?

OCHS: About 95% I’d say! Nothing has changed.

PATCH: Are people surprised at how much his songs speak to our current situation?

OCHS: They’re amazed. Just by changing one line or one word. In the song I Ain’t Marching Anymore the bridge lyric says, “It's always the old to lead us to the war / It's always the young to fall.” One of my performers switched it to “It’s always the rich to lead us to the war / Always to poor to fall.” Boy, did that hit it right on the head. Another one that knocked me for a loop was after 9/11. A performer changed one word in the song There But For Fortune. The original line read, “Show me the ruins of buildings once so tall.” But, that performer sang “the towers once so tall.” It was bone-chilling.

PATCH: Your brother was a big movie fan as a kid. How do you think he’d react to seeing a documentary about his life?

OCHS: I think he would be so thrilled. He’d say, “That’s me up there! I finally made my mark!”

More details about the documentary can be found at www.philochsthemovie.com. Information about the screening is at www.avontheatre.org.