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‘John Wayne Knows Who I Am’

Ochs always had a love-hate relationship with American culture. He worshipped John Wayne. It was Wayne's politics he abhorred. When Wayne railed in a national magazine against "anti-American" singers like Ochs and Baez, Ochs was actually thrilled.

"He was jumping around, all excited, saying, 'John Wayne knows who I am. John Wayne knows who I am,'" Michael Ochs recalls.

So when Ochs finally stood before Carnegie Hall as a politically empowered Elvis, he thought he could pull it off with both irony and reverence. At one point, he gestured to his gold lamé and said, "I've been living out in Hollywood, Calif., for two years, and it hasn't had any effect on me."

His old Greenwich Village neighbors were unsure. Hecklers called for him to strip. One man asked repeatedly for "The real Phil Ochs."

On top of the mixed message, Ochs really didn't have the body to impersonate a sex symbol. "I told him to think about a diet," Michael Ochs said. Historians will note that Phil was a fat Elvis way before Elvis was a fat Elvis.

And still Ochs persevered.

"If there's any hope for America, it lies in a revolution, and if there's any hope for a revolution in America, it lies in getting Elvis Presley to become Che Guevara," Ochs proclaimed.

"Because if you don't do that, you are beating your head against the wall or the cops are beating your head against the wall."

The first show was cut short by a bomb threat. The second show got delayed when Ochs punched a hole through the box office window, trying to get seats for some fans. By the time he returned to the stage, he had a nasty gash in one hand. His new suit was stained with blood.

"At times he and his fans are at one with each other; at other times they are so polarized you feel the entire situation might explode into chaos," wrote Mark Kemp, music news editor for Rolling Stone.

"Even when Carnegie Hall's security pulled the plug on the drunken Ochs way after midnight, he kept his ground. 'I want power,' he chanted, and the crowd joined in."