Sold Date: January 10, 2021
Start Date: November 10, 2020
Final Price: $15.75 (USD)
Seller Feedback: 486
Buyer Feedback: 0

These three albums--Rehearsals For Retirement, Tape From California and I Ain't Marching Anymore--are the work of Phil Ochs, a "bad boy" among the protest singers of the 1960's, who was in the middle of the mess at the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968 and testified at the trial of the Chicago Seven, a colossal abortion of justice if ever I saw one. This was at the height of the FBI's COINTELPRO program, an abuse of Federal police powers even worse than what we have now. There was even more risk of being a peaceful protester back then than there is now. Among the protest singers of that time, Phil Ochs was perhaps the most "in your face" performer. I saw him play in 1969, I think. Not sure, the late 60's and early 70's are kind of blurry. It was the height of the Viet Nam war. The violence and death was on TV every night, and the country was almost as polarized as it is now. Quite a few people got up and left Phil's performance, and had words with him on their way out, and he also had some fairly strong words for them, too. They expected to see a regular vanilla folk singer, Puff the Magic Dragon and Where Have All the Flowers Gone, that kind of stuff. Instead, they got White Boots Marching In A Yellow Land. It was a pretty memorable experience. Phil Ochs descended his own downward spiral and hung himself after his career floundered and he expanded his use of alcohol and drugs. But he was good while he lasted. I would put his songs of anger and protest right up there with the best songs of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Some of them actually hit you harder than Woody and Pete, but they were writing their songs during the Depression, the "Good" war, and the McCarthy era of mindless anti-Communist hysteria, so they were subject to much repression by the Feds as well as local law enforcement zealots. It was a disgraceful time in our country. Worse than now. These albums have normal wear and tear from being played quite a bit, but they still played  very well in 1992, the year I switched from Vinyl to CD's, which is one of the reasons I kept them, and I've had them stored away ever since. They should still play just fine. If they don't, I'll take them back. Phil Ochs really wrote some good stuff in addition to his protest songs. His song about the sinking of the American submarine Scorpion in 1968 is a deeply sad and wonderfully poignant song that will likely stay in your head for a long time. Mark Knopfler's Song of the Drowned Submariner sounds derivative of and compares very well with Ochs's Scorpion song. If his work compares well with Knopfler, one of the best song writers of the past forty years, as I think it does, then it makes one wonder how Ochs's music would have evolved had he not killed himself. These records will give you a lot of enjoyment, a lot of nostalgia, and hopefully enough anger for you to get your protest signs and your Kevlar vest out of the closet.
I AM CHANGING THIS LISTING SO YOU CAN BUY JUST ONE OF THESE ALBUMS, OR YOU CAN BUY MORE THAN ONE AND GET A DISCOUNT. IF YOU BUY ONE OR TWO, YOU MUST SPECIFY WHICH ONE(S) YOU WANT. One is $7.00, two will be 15% off which is $5.95 each, or $11.90 for the two of them, and all three will be 25% off, or $5.25 each, $15.75 for the lot. Plus shipping. Please see below.
I don't really know how to compute shipping for these. They will require serious packing to avoid damage. I'm thinking $4-5 for shipping and another $3.00 for the box and packing material. I think it will cost almost as much to ship one as it would to ship all three. If you have shipped records before and think this is out of line, please send me a message.

Please be aware that I am disabled with limited support resources (and also in a high-risk demographic relative to our current pandemic) and can only make it to the Post Office once a week, usually on Tuesday.