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Rating: 
Summary: cruxifiction redux
Review: as super-"och'sfan", i collect everything i can on my favorite singer. i found this book about a year & a half ago in a used bookstore in calgary. well written by an old friend of phil och's it is a sympathetic, loving, look back on a very remarkable life. i felt much the same as when i first heard my first och's song, cruxifiction, when i was 23. hearing this stunning peice about the inevitability of fate, i was stunned, overwhelmed, and ultimatley uplifted. it made me want to collect every album (i know, i know, that dates me.) & any literary info on this man. i would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants understand their world, & to those who remember when music mattered.
Rating: 
Summary: OK for what it is...
Review: I am about 2/3rds of the way through reading this book. It is pretty weak writing (but not bad), and the author doesn't seem to be able to really connect-the-dots or provide a clear overall view of Ochs, but the facts seem to be there. If you can read between the lines, a full and sad picture of Phil Ochs emerges. For me, it's a little disturbing to read what a jerk Ochs was a lot of the time... except maybe when he was singing. He seems to have had serious problems with women. I bought this second-hand from my local library . This is an OK book. I've heard the other bio "There But For Fortune" is allegedly much better, but this one was written by a friend/associate of Phil's, which gave him an eye-witness account to some of the stuff, but doesn't neccessarily make him a good writer. (I grew up listening to my older brother's Phil Ochs albums. I liked a lot of his stuff... and was broken hearted in 76 when I heard he committed suicide.)
Rating: 
Summary: Hatchet job.
Review: Phil Ochs was a great artist, Marc Eliot has a lot of nerve to call himself a friend, he did all he could to destroy Phil's lasting image by overemphasizing his tragedies in the most distasteful and vulgar fashion imaginable. Ochs was indeed an artist, rebel. His life was an inspiration, his death a great tragedy. Eliot's book is painful to read, and understandably angered the Ochs' family. This is exploitation and sensationalism at its very worst. Do yourself a favor, skip this garbage and find a copy of Michael Schumacher's more restrained and honest account, "There but for Fortune".
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