| This Is Absolutely Real: Visions and Versions of Phil Ochs | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Studio album by Pat Wictor | |
| Released | 2017 |
| Genre | Folk |
| Label | RiskyDisc Records |
| Producer | Pat Wictor |
This Is Absolutely Real: Visions and Versions of Phil Ochs is a cover album by American blues and folk musician Pat Wictor. The songs included were all written by U.S. singer-songwriter Phil Ochs. It was released in 2017 on Wictor's independent label, RiskyDisc Records.
Folk music includes traditional folk music and the genre that evolved from it during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that.
Pat Wictor is an American blues and folk musician, guitarist, singer/songwriter, and recording artist. Known for his ethereal style, he was nominated for Emerging Artist of the Year in 2006 by the Folk Alliance, and has released a number of solo albums. In 2010 Wictor co-founded the folk trio Brother Sun, with singer-songwriters Joe Jencks and Greg Greenway, and the band has since released two full albums and toured extensively. Wictor also has an extensive discography as a sideman, playing instruments such as lap slide guitar and dobro. He currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose, and perform their own musical material, including lyrics and melodies.
Contents
In Sing Out! , Ron Olesko described This Is Absolutely Real as a "welcome collection" that "celebrates two outstanding voices—the iconic Phil Ochs as well as contemporary folk music's standard-bearer, Pat Wictor." He wrote that it would have been easy to choose a group of well-known songs by Ochs, but instead "Pat took a different—and ultimately a more relevant approach" by covering songs that are not as well known. Wictor's song selection and his recordings, Olesko wrote, "show the beautiful poetry that embodied the work of Phil Ochs. ... By choosing these deeper tracks from Phil Ochs song book, Pat reveals both the beauty and depth of Ochs' artistic achievements while adding to his own impressive accomplishments as a creative musician." [1]
Sing Out! was a quarterly journal of folk music and folk songs that was published from May 1950 through spring 2014.
The nine songs on This Is Absolutely Real include some that were recorded professionally and released by Ochs and others, such as "First Snow" and "I'm Tired", that were recorded as demos and released after his 1976 death. [1]
A demo is a song or group of songs recorded for limited circulation or reference use rather than for general public release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas in a fixed format, such as cassette tape, compact disc, or digital audio files, and to thereby pass along those ideas to record labels, record producers, or to other artists.
