All The News That's Fit To Sing

Early on in his career, someone described Phil Ochs as a "singing journalist," and his first album, All the News That's Fit to Sing, represented the state of the art in topical songs in 1964. That presents a bit of a problem when listening to it today; Ochs's debut is so much a product of its time and place that it just sounds perplexing a few decades on. Remember Lou Marsh? Or William Worthy? Well, if you don't, the songs about them on this album may not mean much to you, and while the facts behind the Vietnam War, the Cuban missile crisis, and the civil rights movement are doubtless clearer in your mind, that only gives them a perversely nostalgic quality that hardly becomes them. And past the issue of topicality, All the News That's Fit to Sing captures Phil Ochs when he was still young and a bit green; his vocals are sometimes hesitant, his material is often a bit obvious, and the spare two-guitar accompaniment (Danny Kalb plays the flashier licks) is a bit too generically folkie for its own good. But Ochs' remarkable talent is still apparent despite the album's flaws; "One More Parade" and "Power and the Glory" are as striking now as the day they were written, "Too Many Martyrs" and "Celia" summon an emotional power that has outlived their topicality, and his adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Bells" proves his musical instincts were as keen as his lyrical ones. A flawed but engaging debut which points to the stronger work Ochs would soon put to wax. ~ Mark Deming