🎵 AotW THE WAR IS OVER - THE BEST OF PHIL OCHS (A&M SP 5215)

LPJim

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1 Tape From California 6:46
2 Flower Lady 6:03
3 Half A Century High 2:50
4 The Scorpion Departs But Never Returns 4:14
5 The War Is Over 4:22
6 One Way Ticket Home 2:35
7 Rehearsals For Retirement 4:11
8 Chords Of Fame 3:30
9 Gas Station Women 3:29
10 Outside A Small Circle Of Friends 3:41
11 Pleasures Of The Harbor 8:07
12 Kansas City Bomber 2:27
13 White Boots Marching In A Yellow Land 3:31
14 Jim Dean Of Indiana 5:01
15 No More Songs 4:15
16 I Ain't Marchin' Anymore (Live Version)Written-By – B. Gibson* 4:31

  • Executive Producer – Geoffrey Schulman, Jeffrey Gold
  • Written-By – Phil Ochs between 1967-70

Compilation â„— 1988 A&M Records, Inc. & issued as CD 5215 DX 003704
© 1988 A&M Records, Inc.
Printed in the U.S.A.
Made in the U.S.A.

Now out of print. A 20th Century Masters compilation was issued later.


JB
 
This must have been issued and deleted long before I ever cared about Phil Ochs. I became somewhat fond of the Phil Ochs track on the old FAMILY PORTRAIT ("Cross My Heart") album as I was dubbing it to either cassette or CD in the late 90s, maybe early 2000s. It impressed me enough that I went out at lunchtime to a Borders store (remember those?) and looked through whatever they had for Phil Ochs, and at that time it was the 20th Century Masters Millennium Collection that was all that was to be found.

That compilation started off with "Cross My Heart" and indeed the first 5 tracks were all from PLEASURES OF THE HARBOR album. That gave me a hefty taste of that first A&M album, and I sought out a copy from Collectors Choice, all that was available on CD.

Later on I added the other Collectors Choice discs with 3 more of Phil's A&M albums. In truth, I've only ever been really fond of PLEASURES OF THE HARBOR. I can say that the 20th Century Disc sounds amazing.

In all of my online searches and record store crawls, I've never seen or heard of this particular A&M record, so I've learned something new today!
 
That same song Cross my heart is an absolute favorite as I too heard it through the Family portrait LP back in the 80s
 
I've always felt that this album (and the two that follow it, The Flying Burrito Brothers' Further Along and Oingo Boingo's Skeletons in the Closet) could easily have fit the A&M Classics series with simply a cover redesign (and maybe an additional track or three). That could be true for many other A&M "Best of" compilations that seemed to be getting pushed out at this point. I think with the demand for older recordings to become available on CD at this point in history, A&M may have felt that either an artist's "sale-ability" didn't warrant a full catalog re-issue on CD (Ochs' LPs were licensed to collectors Choice, for example) or a compilation of the best would suffice until the demand to press more on CD could be met.

--Mr. Bill
 
Sadly the "Universal Way" is to endlessly recompile artists' tunes every five or ten years, and let the original albums languish in the vaults. (A sore spot for another band I work with, who has recorded on MCA and GRP...fans still want the old albums but all they get are poorly-programmed compilations sloppily thrown together every several years.)
 
Sadly the "Universal Way" is to endlessly recompile artists' tunes every five or ten years, and let the original albums languish in the vaults. (A sore spot for another band I work with, who has recorded on MCA and GRP...fans still want the old albums but all they get are poorly-programmed compilations sloppily thrown together every several years.)
I agree with you and other labels do the same thing Not Just Universal
 
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