Country Joe McDonald

Country Joe McDonald, founder and leader of the psychedelic folk-rock ensemble Country Joe & the Fish—the foremost left-leaning act of the 1960s—channeled political and environmental concerns into song. After the ensemble dissolved in 1971, he sustained that commitment by writing and performing his own folk-styled material.

Born in Washington, D.C., McDonald spent his formative years in El Monte, California, a Los Angeles suburb to which his parents, Florence and Worden, had relocated to avoid political entanglements in the capital. Music figured prominently in his youth; he attended numerous shows at El Monte Legion Stadium and, drawn to Dixieland, became a regular at the Lighthouse Club in Hermosa Beach. At seventeen he joined the U.S. Navy, and after three years of service he studied for a year at City College in Los Angeles. Although he later moved to Berkeley intending to continue his education, music proved the stronger draw, and he spent most of his time performing with outfits such as the Berkeley String Quartet and the Instant Action Jug Band, the latter including future collaborator Barry Melton.

In 1964, joined by folk guitarist Blair Hardman, McDonald cut his earliest recordings. Originally issued by First American Records, several of those tracks were later re-recorded for his 1976 album The Goodbye Blues. Remaining politically engaged in the mid-1960s, he published the left-wing periodical Rag Baby. After producing a handful of issues, he decided to create a recorded “talking” edition. Released as an EP, the disc contained two numbers credited to Country Joe & the Fish: the Dixieland-flavored anti–Vietnam War statement “I Feel Like I’m Fixing to Die Rag” and the Lyndon Johnson satire “Superbird.” Once the project was finished, McDonald and Melton resolved to assemble a more ambitious rock band. With McDonald’s politically charged lyrics riding a forceful rock pulse, Country Joe & the Fish quickly gained favor in the San Francisco Bay Area, appearing regularly at Berkeley’s Jabberwocky coffeehouse as well as at the Avalon Ballroom and Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. Their second EP spotlighted three additional McDonald compositions—“Bass Strings,” “Section 43,” and “(Thing Called) Love.”

Vanguard Records signed the group in December 1966, and Electric Music for the Mind and Body appeared soon afterward. Although the label initially persuaded McDonald to withhold “I Feel Like I’m Fixing to Die Rag” from that debut, the song eventually became the title track of the band’s second album; a single version climbed to number 32 on the Billboard charts. In 1967, Country Joe & the Fish made their East Coast debut at New York’s Cafe Au Go Go. After the release of their third album, Together, in 1968, the group toured Europe to warm receptions. Their fourth album, Here We Are Again, issued in 1969, featured guest contributions from Jefferson Airplane’s Jack Casady and Big Brother & the Holding Company’s David Getz and Peter Albin.

Alongside the Fish, McDonald played most of the major festivals of the decade. Their 1967 performance at the Monterey Pop Festival was captured in the documentary film of the event. At Woodstock in August 1969, McDonald performed both with the band and in a solo set highlighted by his profane revision of the “Fish Cheer” that introduced “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die.” That moment, preserved in the festival film, brought him worldwide notice. Yet Woodstock marked the closing phase of the group’s existence. In its aftermath McDonald was arrested in Worcester, Massachusetts, for inciting lewd conduct, while Melton faced marijuana-possession charges. Although they completed one final album, C.J. Fish, with new keyboardist and rhythm section, and appeared in the 1970 film Zacharia, Country Joe & the Fish disbanded in 1971.

By then McDonald had already secured a solo contract with Vanguard and recorded two Nashville sessions: Thinking of Woody Guthrie, released in December 1969, and Tonight I’m Singing Just for You, issued in May 1970. He continued touring and recording as a solo artist. While in England he made the album Hold On: It’s Coming with Fleetwood Mac guitarist Peter Green and additional British musicians. In Scandinavia, producer Knud Thorbjørnsen commissioned him to write songs for a film adaptation of Henry Miller’s Quiet Days in Clichy; the resulting pieces—“Mara,” “Ny’s Song,” and “Henry Miller and the Hungry World”—appeared on the soundtrack. When Grove Films attempted to import prints for U.S. exhibition, customs officials confiscated them as obscene. After prevailing in court, the film opened in New York in 1971. McDonald later composed the score for and appeared in the Chilean documentary Que Hacer, which chronicled Salvador Allende’s successful presidential campaign.

From April 1971 onward, McDonald immersed himself in the antiwar movement, performing at rallies in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. With Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland, he joined the FTA (Free the Army) tour of Vietnam, which included sketches by former Second City performers Ann and Roger Bowen. Although he parted ways with Fonda over political differences, the tour earned him a place on President Nixon’s enemies list. Back in the United States, he recorded an EP with the San Francisco band Grootna. A solo Bottom Line performance was released in 1972 as the live album Incredible Live! Throughout 1972 and 1973 he worked with the All-Star Band, whose members were drawn chiefly from the Fish and Big Brother & the Holding Company; that ensemble backed him on the 1973 album Paris Sessions.

McDonald resided in Europe for most of 1974. Upon returning to California in 1975 he formed Energy Crisis with former Fish member Bruce Barthol and ex–Instant Action Jug Band musician Phil Marsh; the group appeared on that year’s Paradise with an Ocean View, whose anthemic “Save the Whales” signaled his growing ecological focus. The remainder of the decade proved his most productive period, yielding seven albums: Love Is a Fire, Goodbye Blues, Rock & Roll Music from the Planet Earth, Leisure Suite, On My Own, Into the Fire, and Child’s Play. In 1977, Country Joe & the Fish briefly reunited to record the album Reunion.

Beginning in 1982, McDonald turned his attention to Vietnam veterans’ issues, collaborating with Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Swords to Plowshares, and Vietnam Veterans of America. That work culminated in the 1988 album and video Vietnam Experience. His 1991 release Superstitious Blues, largely acoustic, included two tracks featuring Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead. Carry On, issued in 1995, was shaped by the deaths of his parents and contained the tribute “The Lady with the Lamp” to Florence Nightingale as well as the title song, which featured Garcia on electric guitar. Over the following decade McDonald remained active both on the road and in the studio, releasing material on his own Rag Baby label and collaborating with artists including the Bevis Frond and Bernie Krause. In 2004 he rejoined former bandmates Bruce Barthol, David Bennett, and Gary Hirsh for a tour as the Country Joe Band. In 2007 he launched the Tribute to Woody Guthrie stage show, blending songs with spoken-word segments, and issued a recorded version the next year. The 2012 double album Time Flies By gathered reworked material spanning his entire career. He returned in 2017 with 50, a set of new songs addressing contemporary political and social topics.