Phil Ochs

[Kathleen Collins]

I believe it was on this Forum that a very colorful man posted some photos of Phil Ochs near the Dal-Tex building during the Assassination. It's always been a mystery (since the man shared the story), at least to me what he was doing there. Ochs was aligned with Left-Wing radicals. How did he get to Dealey Plaza that day? (He was born in Texas.) I find his death by hanging in April 1976 highly suspicious. I had saved the photos on a hard drive that I can't use, evidently. Can anyone post those pictures? I don't remember the man's name who posted them and was friends with Phil Ochs.

Thanks,

Kathy

[William Kelly]

I believe it was on this Forum that a very colorful man posted some photos of Phil Ochs near the Dal-Tex building during the Assassination. It's always been a mystery (since the man shared the story), at least to me what he was doing there. Ochs was aligned with Left-Wing radicals. How did he get to Dealey Plaza that day? (He was born in Texas.) I find his death by hanging in April 1976 highly suspicious. I had saved the photos on a hard drive that I can't use, evidently. Can anyone post those pictures? I don't remember the man's name who posted them and was friends with Phil Ochs.

Thanks,

Kathy

Here's Phil Ochs at DP.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...mp;#entry108817

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...mp;#entry105964

[Kathleen Collins]

I believe it was on this Forum that a very colorful man posted some photos of Phil Ochs near the Dal-Tex building during the Assassination. It's always been a mystery (since the man shared the story), at least to me what he was doing there. Ochs was aligned with Left-Wing radicals. How did he get to Dealey Plaza that day? (He was born in Texas.) I find his death by hanging in April 1976 highly suspicious. I had saved the photos on a hard drive that I can't use, evidently. Can anyone post those pictures? I don't remember the man's name who posted them and was friends with Phil Ochs.

Thanks,

Kathy

Here's Phil Ochs at DP.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...mp;#entry108817

Thanks, Bill. Much appreciated. Do you think Phil Ochs was murdered?

Kathy

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...mp;#entry105964

[Kathleen Collins]

I believe it was on this Forum that a very colorful man posted some photos of Phil Ochs near the Dal-Tex building during the Assassination. It's always been a mystery (since the man shared the story), at least to me what he was doing there. Ochs was aligned with Left-Wing radicals. How did he get to Dealey Plaza that day? (He was born in Texas.) I find his death by hanging in April 1976 highly suspicious. I had saved the photos on a hard drive that I can't use, evidently. Can anyone post those pictures? I don't remember the man's name who posted them and was friends with Phil Ochs.

Thanks,

Kathy

Here's Phil Ochs at DP.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...mp;#entry108817

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...mp;#entry105964

I tried looking it up on the search engine, but I don't get anything I'm looking for. Another thing -- Sometimes I can't see the photos someone has posted.

Kathy

[Michael McMahon]

After studying those pictures of the man in front of the Dal-Tex building, I really can't go along with that being Phil Ochs, just on the basis of the pictures alone...I don't see how anyone can pick up enough detail in such a small snapshot, to me the person in the photos is vaguely defined (at best), so I don't wager an opinion.

However, as for Ochs being murdered, that seems a bit farfetched. Is there any evidence at all to back this up?

Suicide seems more likely. For a few different reference points on Ochs' unstable frame of mind, take a look at:

Robert Shelton: No Direction Home

Clinton Heylin: Bob Dylan, Behind the Shades Revisited

Larry Sloman: On the Road with Bob Dylan

All three of these books deal with Dylan's career (obviously) but there are a number of different sections dealing with the NYC Folk movement, Phil Ochs in particular.

All three authors note that friends and fellow musicians considered Ochs very unstable in the 1970's, and incoherent much of the time. In 1975, Dylan launched the Rolling Thunder Revue, a unique ensemble of folkies and ecelctic musicians to tour the Northeast, and eventually much of the United States and Canada. Ochs was under consideration to 'make the cut', if you will, but his often-bizarre behavior and mood swings killed his chances. Apparently, he saw this failure to tour with the Revue as possibly a final straw, and he killed himself soon after.

[William Kelly]

After studying those pictures of the man in front of the Dal-Tex building, I really can't go along with that being Phil Ochs, just on the basis of the pictures alone...I don't see how anyone can pick up enough detail in such a small snapshot, to me the person in the photos is vaguely defined (at best), so I don't wager an opinion.

However, as for Ochs being murdered, that seems a bit farfetched. Is there any evidence at all to back this up?

Suicide seems more likely. For a few different reference points on Ochs' unstable frame of mind, take a look at:

Robert Shelton: No Direction Home

Clinton Heylin: Bob Dylan, Behind the Shades Revisited

Larry Sloman: On the Road with Bob Dylan

All three of these books deal with Dylan's career (obviously) but there are a number of different sections dealing with the NYC Folk movement, Phil Ochs in particular.

All three authors note that friends and fellow musicians considered Ochs very unstable in the 1970's, and incoherent much of the time. In 1975, Dylan launched the Rolling Thunder Revue, a unique ensemble of folkies and ecelctic musicians to tour the Northeast, and eventually much of the United States and Canada. Ochs was under consideration to 'make the cut', if you will, but his often-bizarre behavior and mood swings killed his chances. Apparently, he saw this failure to tour with the Revue as possibly a final straw, and he killed himself soon after.

[John Dolva]

letter

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_arch...37|1|1|1|37907|

song

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_arch...38|1|1|1|37909|

congressional records

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_arch...54|3|1|1|70754|

[William Kelly]

letter

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_arch...37|1|1|1|37907|

song

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_arch...38|1|1|1|37909|

congressional records

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_arch...54|3|1|1|70754|

Thanks for that John,

I'm trying to narrow down some things.

Ochs and Dylan had the same manager for awhile - Albert Grossman.

Dylan lived at his apartment in New York and his home in Woodstock.

Ochs suspected that Grossman had foreknowledge of the assassination.

When Dylan is given the Tom Paine Award, besides Oswald and Corlis Lamont, he mentions some of those who went to Cuba, and dedicated the award to them.

One of those who went to Cuba and may have even fought with Castro, was Richard Farina, who married Joan Biez's sister Mimi.

Farina wrote a book "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me" that was a big hippie, beatnick best seller, and Farina died before his time.

Does anyone know anything about Richard Farina's trips to Cuba?

Thanks,

BK

[John Dolva]

http://mdah.state.ms.us/arrec/digital_arch...30|2|1|1|15686|

haven't found the list but it's there (the list of about 200 who went to Cuba, no idea if person, or aka, is there. (correction, list starts at third page)

(as well as a Sheila : off topic)

[William Kelly]

After studying those pictures of the man in front of the Dal-Tex building, I really can't go along with that being Phil Ochs, just on the basis of the pictures alone...I don't see how anyone can pick up enough detail in such a small snapshot, to me the person in the photos is vaguely defined (at best), so I don't wager an opinion.

However, as for Ochs being murdered, that seems a bit farfetched. Is there any evidence at all to back this up?

Suicide seems more likely. For a few different reference points on Ochs' unstable frame of mind, take a look at:

Robert Shelton: No Direction Home

Clinton Heylin: Bob Dylan, Behind the Shades Revisited

Larry Sloman: On the Road with Bob Dylan

All three of these books deal with Dylan's career (obviously) but there are a number of different sections dealing with the NYC Folk movement, Phil Ochs in particular.

All three authors note that friends and fellow musicians considered Ochs very unstable in the 1970's, and incoherent much of the time. In 1975, Dylan launched the Rolling Thunder Revue, a unique ensemble of folkies and ecelctic musicians to tour the Northeast, and eventually much of the United States and Canada. Ochs was under consideration to 'make the cut', if you will, but his often-bizarre behavior and mood swings killed his chances. Apparently, he saw this failure to tour with the Revue as possibly a final straw, and he killed himself soon after.

Michael,

I must take issue with you on these points. I think it could be Phil Ochs in that photo of the man in the garage door of the Dal Tex building, just where he said he was.

In addition, its possible he was there as a "security observer" because he did have the connections that would have given him foreknowledge of the assassination if it was a military operation. He went to a military academy, was a sgt. in the Air Force and a cadet in the ROTC in college in Ohio.

He won his first guitar when JFK won the election and became a prolific folk and protest singer who wrote songs about the Bay of Pigs, Medgar Evers, JFK assassination, civil rights and other issues that made the New Left and such protest singers a threat to national security. Enough of a threat for them to be infiltrated and monitored.

As seen with the Don Norton who played piano in the officer's club, there was interest in recruiting such people for the information they could provide, and sometimes the recruitment was based on blackmail, and not just money.

In addition, the same protest singers were also involved in Cuban, as Dylan dedicated his Tom Paine award to those who visited Cuba, and Richard Faria is said to have been in the mountains with Castro.

The FBI's COINTELPRO campaign was an expansion of a program already in place that monitored disidents, and the CIA's MKULTRA overlapped with this same group in their recruitment of students to test LSD (as with Kesey and Leary), so its not surprising that Ochs could have been a snitch for a domestic intel agency.

I don't know anything about his death, other than its suspicious, but his life certainly allows for him to have been "a security observer" at Dealey Plaza when the deal went down.

And to answer Greg's question as to whether Ed Sanders, the author of these liner notes to the Phil Ochs recording, http://www.bigbridge.org/issue9/ochsesanders.htm is the same Ed Sanders who was in the Fugs and wrote the book on Charlie Manson, the answer appears to be YES.

http://www.thefugs.com/

BK

[David Andrews]

Fugs post deleted for decorum's sake.

Edited May 24, 2010 by David Andrews

[William Kelly]

Has Jim Glover or anyone seen this video before it was removed? - BK

Video: JFK Murder Conspiracy Revealed By Folk Singer Phil Ochs

4th November 2008

http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/allposts/music-video-jfk-murder-conspiracy-revealed-by-folk-singer-phil-ochs

This video has been removed by the user.

[William Kelly]

JFKcountercoup: Phil Ochs at Dealey Plaza?

[William Kelly]

The Ballad of Billie Sol

By Phil Ochs

Billie Sol was a man

From the giant Texas land

He put the Chamber of Commerce on a limb

They voted him the best

And the government did no less

Until the I.O.U.'s of Texas fell on him

Stand tall, Billie Sol, we don't know you at all

We've taken down your pictures from the wall

Well, we don't want to handle an agriculture scandal

We have got to face elections in the fall

I remember when

Bill had influential friends

He celebrated Christmas every day

He filled texas banks with his fertilizer tanks

Influential friends don't die they only fade away

Stand tall, Billie Sol, we don't know you at all

We've taken down your pictures from the wall

Well, we don't want to handle an agriculture scandal

We have got to face elections in the fallThe democrats deny

And Orville Freeman sighs

He said "Everyone around was fair and square"

But He was no more convincing

than Ezra Taft Benson

As resignations cropped up everywhere

Stand tall, Billie Sol, we don't know you at all

We've taken down your pictures from the wall

Well, we don't want to handle an agriculture scandal

We have got to face elections in the fall

And now I'd like to say

that crime sure doesn't pay

But if you want to make some money on the sly

Well you can always rent

The U.S. Government

It's the best one that money can buy.

Stand tall, Billie Sol

We don't know you at all

We've take down your pictures from the wall

Well, we don't want to handle

and agriculture scandal

We have got to face elections in the fall