Phil Ochs: Crucifixion with Byrd

Phil Ochs was a prominent figure of the counterculture and protest movement in the United States during the turbulent decade of the 1960s. Mixing politics and music, he befriended like-minded individuals such as Jerry Rubin and Tom Hayden as well as singer-songwriters Victor Jara and Joan Baez to name but a few. Ochs was particularly successful at embodying the principles that informed his music and lyrics. As the decade progressed, his reputation as a topical songwriter grew but he also became progressively discontented with the confines of the genre.

After two studio albums and one live record, Ochs started to contemplate the possibility of expanding musically. He had witnessed Dylan’s tribulation with folk purists and understood that attempts to depart from a more traditional folk sound would certainly alienate a great number of people. Ochs nonetheless resolved to explore new avenues by hiring arranger Joseph Byrd to work on the closing track of Pleasures of the Harbor.

With this fourth album, Ochs ambitiously mixed folk, pop, classical, and avant-garde music. “Crucifixion,” the album’s closing track, best illustrates the extent to which he tried to break away from the NY folk scene. The song is also his most radical musical statement.

The above clip shows Ochs performing “Crucifixion” in its stripped down form. This is the version (or a variation of it) that eventually appeared on compilations and later live records.

But when Ochs and Byrd entered the studio in 1967, they did so with the intention of transforming the song into a larger and more strident statement. Byrd, a former student of John Cage and prolific musician (arranger, score composer and member of the United States of America), contributed sophisticated and extremely intricate arrangements that went beyond what most people were willing to process:

“The record jacket depicts the artist as an immigrant, and to the land of the art song he is certainly a stranger.” – Boston’s Broadside

“This song, Phil’s all-time best, should have been the album’s crowning touch. Instead, it ranks as the biggest recording failure of Phil’s career – a song lost in a flavorless stew of experimental electronic sounds, with Phil’s voice buried in the instrumental arrangements”. - Biographer Michael Schumacher

THE CRUCIFIXION

Pleasures of the Harbor failed commercially when it was released in 1967. Many blamed the excessive reliance on arrangements as well as the “disfiguration” of “Crucifixion”.

It is true that the decisions made concerning the song were unorthodox ones. Yet, “Crucifixion” remains one of Ochs’ most powerful representations of the troubling and chaotic realities of the time.

In the years that followed, Ochs returned to a more traditional sound although he continued to experiment with arrangements. His next record, Tapes from California, featured Van Dyke Parks performing on the opening track. Parks also produced most of Greatest Hits which was released in 1970.

The closing years of the decade provided the context for Ochs to write and record what I consider to be his most poignant material. Pleasures of the Harbor is indeed, as one critic put it, “a milestone for Ochs”.

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