Rehearsals For Retirement
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Rehearsals For Retirement
''Rehearsals for Retirement'' is Phil Ochs's sixth album, released in 1969 on A&M Records. Background Recorded in the aftermath of Ochs's presence at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago (where Ochs claimed to have witnessed the symbolic "death of America") it is often considered to be the darkest of Ochs's albums, exemplified not just by the lyrical matter but also by its cover: a tombstone sardonically proclaiming that Ochs had died in Chicago. ''Rehearsals for Retirement'' saw Ochs exploring folk rock, incorporating orchestral accompaniments and electric guitar into his music. According to English studies scholar David Pichaske, songs such as "Pretty Smart on My Part" and "The Scorpion Departs but Never Returns" functioned as "art-protest songs". The former was written from the perspective of a John Birch Society member who is paranoid of switchblade-toting thieves, foreign operatives, dissident hitchhikers, and dominant, large-breasted women, and acts on this para ...
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Phil Ochs
Philip David Ochs (; December 19, 1940 – April 9, 1976) was an American songwriter and protest singer (or, as he preferred, a topical singer). Ochs was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, political activism, often alliterative lyrics, and distinctive voice. He wrote hundreds of songs in the 1960s and 1970s and released eight albums. Ochs performed at many political events during the 1960s counterculture era, including anti-Vietnam War and civil rights rallies, student events, and organized labor events over the course of his career, in addition to many concert appearances at such venues as New York City's Town Hall and Carnegie Hall. Politically, Ochs described himself as a "left social democrat" who became an "early revolutionary" after the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago led to a police riot, which had a profound effect on his state of mind. After years of prolific writing in the 1960s, Ochs's mental stability declined in the 1970s. He ...
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Lost Generation
The Lost Generation was the social generational cohort in the Western world that was in early adulthood during World War I. "Lost" in this context refers to the "disoriented, wandering, directionless" spirit of many of the war's survivors in the early postwar period. The term is also particularly used to refer to a group of American expatriate writers living in Paris during the 1920s. Gertrude Stein is credited with coining the term, and it was subsequently popularised by Ernest Hemingway, who used it in the epigraph for his 1926 novel ''The Sun Also Rises'': "You are all a lost generation." In a more general sense, the Lost Generation is considered to be made up of individuals born between 1883 and 1900. In the wake of the Industrial Revolution, Western members of the Lost Generation grew up in societies which were more literate, consumerist and media-saturated than ever before, but which also tended to maintain strictly conservative social values. Young men of the cohort were ...
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Ian Freebairn-Smith
Ian Freebairn-Smith (born March 4, 1932) is an American composer, arranger, conductor and group singer in film and TV. He spans from classical to popular music, jazz, choral music, and new music. Early life and education Ian Freebairn-Smith was born in Seattle, Washington.Ian Freebairn-Smith
IMDb.com, Inc., accessed June 8, 2018
He began studying composition in high school. He then attended the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, the , and UCLA. He later studied

Kevin Kelley (musician)
Kevin Daniel Kelley (March 25, 1943 – April 6, 2002) was an American drummer, best known for his work with the rock bands the Byrds and the Rising Sons. Kelley also played drums for Fever Tree, although it is unknown whether he was an official member of the group or not. Kelley is the cousin of country rock pioneer and ex-member of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, Chris Hillman. He also worked as a session musician between 1969 and 1973, playing drums on albums by artists including John Fahey and Phil Ochs. He appears to have retired from the music industry after drumming on Michael Cohen's 1973 album, ''What Did You Expect?'' Kelley should not be confused with the similarly named Kevin Kelly, another American session musician who played piano for Joan Baez during the Rolling Thunder Revue and guested on albums by Tim Buckley, Judee Sill, Bryn Haworth, and The Babys during the 1970s. Biography Early life Kelley began his musical career playing drums for the Beverl ...
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Bob Rafkin
Bob Rafkin (30 March 1944 – 2 May 2013) was an American singer, songwriter and guitar player. Rafkin was born in New York City in 1944. His musical career really took off when he moved to Greenwich Village in the mid-sixties. Here he met David Blue and together they formed ''The American Patrol''. During this period in the Village Rafkin also met Phil Ochs and Eric Andersen and he played on Andersen’s 1966 album ''More Hits from Tin Can Alley'' on Vanguard Records and later on Phil Ochs’ legendary album ''Gunfight at Carnegie Hall''. Rafkin knew Erik Jacobsen - record producer for among others, The Lovin’ Spoonful and Tim Hardin - and in 1967 when Jacobsen moved to San Francisco Rafkin relocated there to work as a producer and session guitarist. In 1968 after breaking with Erik Jacobsen, Rafkin moved again, this time to Los Angeles. In 1972 he played on the David Blue album ''Stories'' and worked with producers Lenny Waronker, Henry Lewy and Larry Marks. Rafkin w ...
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Lincoln Mayorga
Lincoln Mayorga (born March 28, 1937) is an American pianist, arranger, conductor and composer who has worked in rock and roll, pop, jazz and classical music. Life and career Pop music in the 1950s and '60s Mayorga was born in Los Angeles, California, attended Hollywood High School, and trained as a classical pianist. He began working as arranger and accompanist to his high-school friends in the Four Preps, contributing one of the two piano parts on their 1958 hit " Big Man" and being known as "the fifth Prep". The group's producer, Lou Busch, helped Mayorga get a ragtime album issued in 1958, which was released under the pseudonym "Brooke Pemberton".Lou Busch at PerfessorBill.com
Accessed January 26, 2010.
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My Life (Phil Ochs Song)
"My Life" is a 1969 song by Phil Ochs, a US singer-songwriter best known for the protest songs he wrote in the 1960s. "My Life" is the fifth song on ''Rehearsals for Retirement'', an album Ochs recorded in the aftermath of the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention The 1968 Democratic National Convention was held August 26–29 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Earlier that year incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson had announced he would not seek reelection, thus maki ... in Chicago. In the song, Ochs says that his life, which had once been a joy, had become like death to him. In "My Life", Ochs sings "Take everything I own/Take your tap from my phone/And leave my life alone." Years after his death, it was revealed that the FBI had a file of nearly 500 pages on Ochs. References 1969 singles Phil Ochs songs Songs written by Phil Ochs 1969 songs A&M Records singles {{1960s-rock-song-stub ...
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Song Cycle
A song cycle (german: Liederkreis or Liederzyklus) is a group, or cycle (music), cycle, of individually complete Art song, songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online'' The songs are either for solo voice or an ensemble, or rarely a combination of solo songs mingled with choral pieces. The number of songs in a song cycle may be as brief as two songs or as long as 30 or more songs. The term "song cycle" did not enter lexicography until 1865, in Arrey von Dommer's edition of ''Koch’s Musikalisches Lexikon'', but works definable in retrospect as song cycles existed long before then. One of the earliest examples may be the set of seven Cantiga de amigo, Cantigas de amigo by the 13th-century Galicians, Galician jongleur Martin Codax. Jeffrey Mark identified the group of dialect songs 'Hodge und Malkyn' from Thomas Ravenscroft's ''The Briefe Discourse'' (1614) as the first of a number of early 17th Century examples in England. A song cycle is ...
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Protest Song
A protest song is a song that is associated with a movement for social change and hence part of the broader category of ''topical'' songs (or songs connected to current events). It may be folk, classical, or commercial in genre. Among social movements that have an associated body of songs are the abolition movement, prohibition, women's suffrage, the labour movement, the human rights movement, civil rights, the Native American rights movement, the Jewish rights movement, disability rights, the anti-war movement and 1960s counterculture, the feminist movement, the sexual revolution, the gay rights movement, animal rights movement, vegetarianism and veganism, gun control, drug control, tobacco control, and environmentalism. Protest songs are often situational, having been associated with a social movement through context. "Goodnight Irene", for example, acquired the aura of a protest song because it was written by Lead Belly, a black convict and social outcast, although on its ...
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The Wire (magazine)
''The Wire'' (or simply ''Wire'') is a British music magazine publishing out of London, which has been issued monthly in print since 1982. Its website launched in 1997, and an online archive of its entire back catalog became available to subscribers in 2013. Since 1985, the magazine's annual year-in-review issue, Rewind, has named an album or release of the year based on critics' ballots. Originally, ''The Wire'' covered the British jazz scene with an emphasis on avant-garde and free jazz. It was marketed as a more adventurous alternative to its conservative competitor ''Jazz Journal'', and targeted younger readers at a time when ''Melody Maker'' had abandoned jazz coverage. In the late 1980s and 1990s, the magazine expanded its scope until it included a broad range of musical genres under the umbrella of non-mainstream or experimental music. Since then, ''The Wire''s coverage has included experimental rock, electronica, alternative hip hop, modern classical, free improvisat ...
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Robert Christgau
Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and later became an early proponent of musical movements such as hip hop, riot grrrl, and the import of African popular music in the West. Christgau spent 37 years as the chief music critic and senior editor for ''The Village Voice'', during which time he created and oversaw the annual Pazz & Jop critics poll. He has also covered popular music for ''Esquire'', ''Creem'', ''Newsday'', ''Playboy'', ''Rolling Stone'', ''Billboard'', NPR, ''Blender'', and ''MSN Music'', and was a visiting arts teacher at New York University. CNN senior writer Jamie Allen has called Christgau "the E. F. Hutton of the music world – when he talks, people listen." Christgau is best known for his terse, letter-graded capsule album reviews, composed in a concentrat ...
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The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the creative community of New York City. It ceased publication in 2017, although its online archives remained accessible. After an ownership change, the ''Voice'' reappeared in print as a quarterly in April 2021. Over its 63 years of publication, ''The Village Voice'' received three Pulitzer Prizes, the National Press Foundation Award, and the George Polk Award. ''The Village Voice'' hosted a variety of writers and artists, including writer Ezra Pound, cartoonist Lynda Barry, artist Greg Tate, and film critics Andrew Sarris, Jonas Mekas and J. Hoberman. In October 2015, ''The Village Voice'' changed ownership and severed all ties with former parent company Voice Media Group (VMG). The ''Voice'' announced on August 22, 2017, that it would cease p ...
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