Michael Ochs, Music Photo Archivist, Dies at 82

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Michael Ochs (Photo from his WIkipedia page)

Michael Ochs, often called the preeminent music photo archivist of all time, died yesterday, July 23, 2025, at his home in Venice Beach, Calif. The younger brother of famed ’60s singer-songwriter Phil Ochs, Michael Ochs parlayed his hobby of collecting images of musicians into a business that licensed photos to countless outlets, including print and online publications, TV programs and film companies, record labels and management companies, and many others. He was 82; the cause was Parkinson’s disease, with which Ochs had been diagnosed five years ago, although he was also suffering from COPD, kidney and heart issues.

Meegan Lee Ochs-Potter, Michael’s niece and daughter of Phil ochs, posted on Facebook, “I’m utterly shattered, but also living in tremendous gratitude that I had him in my life for so long…Michael lived a wonderful life and passed peacefully.”

Ochs’ collection was said to number some three million images before he sold the archive to Getty Images in 2007.

The Beach Boys perform onstage circa 1964 in California. (L-R) Dennis Wilson, Al Jardine, Carl Wilson, Brian Wilson, Mike Love. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images; used with permission)

Michael Andrew Ochs was born on Feb. 27, 1943, in Austin, Texas, and grew up in Ohio and New York. Beginning in the late ’60s he worked as a photographer for Columbia Records in New York, also serving as Phil’s manager during that period. Phil committed suicide in 1976. Michael served as a producer on the 2010 documentary Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune.

In the ’70s, Michael Ochs worked in the publicity departments of Columbia, Shelter and ABC Records. He began collecting photos as a hobby but once he began receiving payment for photos he’d loaned to others, he concentrated on developing the Michael Ochs Archives. Ultimately, he built his collection of music-related photos into one of the most extensive in the world, and made the Michael Ochs Archives a go-to source for entertainment and news outlets in need of an illustration.

In 1984, Ochs published Rock Archives: A Photographic Journey Through the First Two Decades of Rock & Roll, and later contributed to books on Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and other music and pop culture figures. According to an obituary in The Hollywood Reporter, “Ochs housed much of his collection in a temperature-controlled concrete fortress he built on his property.”

According to a bio on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s website, Ochs’ collection mostly covered the years 1948-94, with the bulk of the material dating from 1975-85.