Ochs is one of the prime figures of the urban folk revival and one of the finest, most innovative songwriters of recent years. (p. 156)

Some months before Tom Paxton's Ramblin' Boy was released …, Phil Ochs's first album came…. The title was significant: All the News That's Fit to Sing, an allusion to the well-known slogan of The New York Times, "All the news that's fit to print." His style, from the moment that he starts playing, is incisive, sometimes cynical. At this time he had a lot in common with Tom Paxton who, expressing above all the right of the individual to be free, refused to be considered as the voice of any particular party or ideology. In the meantime, while individual and collective liberty are the objects of public mockery, he replies with his guitar.

With a voice often passionately angry, he sets about all the windmills...