Trials and Tragedies: Phil Ochs and his Rehearsals for Retirement

by Christine Möhle

This book attempts to shed some light on Phil Ochs' activities during the historically rather important year of 1968. The essays deal with his performance at the Burg Waldeck festival, the events during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and his album Rehearsals for Retirement. In addition to photographs, newspaper articles and facsimiles, it also contains interviews given by Phil Ochs during his tour of Germany and Denmark.Dieses Buch versucht einige von Phil Ochs‘ Aktivitäten während des geschichtlich so bedeutenden Jahres 1968 näher zu beleuchten. Die Beiträge befassen sich mit seinem Auftritt auf dem Burg Waldeck Festival, den Ereignissen während des Parteitages der Demokraten in Chicago und seinem Album Rehearsals for Retirement. Neben Fotos, Zeitungsartikeln und Faksimiles enthält es außerdem Interviews, die Phil Ochs während seiner Tour in Deutschland und Dänemark gegeben hat.

134 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 5, 2017

Reviews

[Curmudgeon · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love Phil Ochs, and I would never want to say anything bad about a book written about him because there are so few of them out there, but this is a very disorganized and slim publication, with many of the pages consisting of translations of content. The longest article is on a German folk festival; Phil's role as one of the performers was only incidental. The transcriptions and translations of interviews are nice to have, but the book as a whole just feels rather insubstantial. (Rehearsals For Retirement is mentioned prominently in the book's title, for example, but there's only one article examining it.) It consists of many unrelated topics, but lacks the length or breadth necessary to make it feel like an anthology or a more coherent collection of articles.