The Songs of Phil Ochs Vol. 2 – Album Launch
Green Note, Camden
Saturday 1st August
Matinee Show
Doors 1:30pm, Live Music 2:30pm
Tickets £20 Advance (£23 on the door)
Back in April 2020, as lockdown brought normal life to a standstill, Phil Odgers — singer and acoustic guitarist with The Men They Couldn’t Hang — finally found time to embark on a project he’d long been considering: a collection of Phil Ochs songs. Teaming up remotely with John Kettle (Merry Hell guitarist and producer), the pair created Far Rockaway, a critically acclaimed album that became a folk favourite, earning radio play across the US and Europe and introducing Ochs’ work to new listeners.
With that mission accomplished, Odgers returned to his own writing and touring, with no plans to revisit the idea. But four years and seven months later, on the morning of 6 November 2024, hearing the newsreader announce Donald Trump’s second presidential victory, he felt compelled to return to Ochs’ catalogue. The result is The War Is Over — a collection shaped by world events, steeped in anti‑war themes, and filled with stories of struggle and resistance.
The album was completed exactly fifty years after Phil Ochs took his own life. His songs remain powerful, urgent and sadly as relevant today as when they were written.
Phil Ochs died on 9 April 1976 in Far Rockaway, Queens, New York. The War Is Over is dedicated to his memory and to the lasting impact he made on people, music and politics.
Phil Odgers and John Kettle have chosen Green Note for the London launch of The War Is Over (The Songs of Phil Ochs Vol. 2).