We can surmise from information available about him that Ochs was, among other things, stubborn, idealistic, dedicated, and naïve. We can surmise something similar from the recordings he left behind and from a big, new early-late sampler … called "Chords of Fame." Ochs had the qualities that seem to be essential for a person of his calling…. If we knew which traits were exaggerated or sometimes out of control in Ochs, we would know something. You can't tell from Ed Sanders' huge batch of liner notes, although they make the dedication clear enough and hint at other things. Something proved deadly, or some combination did, for, as the Seventies dragged on, imitating a second-rate Eisenhower era, Phil Ochs did commit suicide.

Naïveté? Was that it? It's a quality that attended his construction of melodies, and in that realm it served him well; Ochs didn't know a damned...