There But for Fortune (CD - 1989)

Songs from the LPs ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO SING, I AIN'T MARCHIN' ANYMORE, PHIL OCHS IN CONCERT.

Personnel: Phil Ochs (vocals, guitar).

Liner Note Author: Lenny Kaye.

Photographer: David Gahr.

Unknown Contributor Role: Carol Shadford.

It's often difficult to create a compilation album that does a musician justice when they recorded for more than one label, and this is certainly the case with Phil Ochs. Ochs' first three albums for Elektra were the work of a gifted but earnest topical songwriter armed with an acoustic guitar, while the five albums that followed for A&M found Ochs exploring both personal as well as political issues, and broadening his musical approach. Unfortunately, outside of the three-disc box set Farewells & Fantasies and the out of print double-LP collection Chords of Fame, none of the many Ochs compilations that have emerged have featured material from both periods of his recording career, and There but for Fortune devotes itself strictly to Ochs' Elektra recordings, with a special emphasis on his best known political songs. Given its boundaries, There but for Fortune is a fine collection that cherry-picks much of the best material from this catalog, with a special emphasis on the excellent Phil Ochs in Concert -- all but one of its 11 songs appear on this disc, though sadly most of his witty between-song banter has been left on the cutting-room floor. If you're looking for a definitive Ochs anthology, you're going to have to shell out the big bucks for Farewells & Fantasies, but There but for Fortune does a fine job of skimming the highlights of Ochs' early political material, and demonstrates why he was considered second only to Bob Dylan as the leading protest balladeer of the day. ~ Mark Deming

THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE is an excellent complement to the other single-disc Phil Ochs compilation, THE WAR IS OVER. Where that album covers the singer/songwriter's later, more pop-oriented A&M albums, THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE anthologizes Ochs' three Elektra releases, 1964's ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO SING, 1965's I AIN'T MARCHIN' ANYMORE, and 1966's IN CONCERT. At this time, Ochs was a Greenwich Village-based topical folksinger, somewhere between the sometimes strident declamatory style of early Bob Dylan and the sly, ironic humor of Ochs' contemporary Richard Farina. The caustic "Love Me, I'm a Liberal" and the haunting title track, perhaps better known in Joan Baez's rendition, are particular highlights, but by eliminating the albums' weaker or more dated tracks and sequencing the songs with thoughtful care, THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE provides an excellent introduction to the early work of one of folk's most gifted performers. minimize