A Short History of Country Joe and the Fish

Country Joe And The Fish recorded three classic psychedelic albums. They released them on a independent record label and were influential in pop's assimilation of prog rock. Joe McDonald had spent some years playing in various folk bands in and around LA. Along with guitarist Barry Melton he began creating rock music around the same time as Bob Dylan went all electric.

By this time he had already written most of his most famous songs. 'I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die' was an anti Vietnam War song and was based around the idea that 'you could be the first on your block to have your boy come home in a box'. It was self-produced, which was unusual in 1966 and released as a promo track for the folk magazine Rag Baby, which McDonald also edited. McDonald and Melton signed with Vanguard Records, a fiercely independent label who had been politically active in promoting various counter-cultural causes and folk releases. They started calling themselves Country Joe And The Fish when Bruce Barthol, David Cohen and Chicken Hirsh joined.

In 1967 they started recording their debut album, 'Electric Music For The Mind And Body'. They were largely left to do what they want in the studio, which was in Berkeley. The songs they wrote and recorded were a mixed bag. 'Superbird' was a satire about Lyndon B. Johnson. 'Dark Sound Blues' was dark and maudlin. 'Happiness Is A Porpoise Mouth' was just rude. The core of the album, however, is made up of a series of mellow dreamlike songs that are among some of the best psychedelia of the era. 'Section 43' and 'The Masked Marauder' are instrumentals and have a spacious, sprawling and eastern acid rock type feel. 'Bass Strings' starts with 'Hey mister, won't you pass that reefer around' and is all incense and grass.

A year later saw the release of their second album, 'I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die'. The title track having been written some time before, there was also a love song for Janis Joplin and a sneaky little between-song LSD jingle. The album sold well on the back of the infamous 'Fish' cheer incident at festival in New York. Woodstock gave the band more promotional fuel by replacing the F-I-S-H in the cheer with another four letter word beginning with F.

They went on to make one more album with that original Country Joe And The Fish line-up. 'Together' has a tribute to James Brown via the newly invented 'sockin-it-to-ya' riff and it includes 'The Harlem Song', which sarcastically highlights the problems of Harlem neighborhood. There was a lot of talk by McDonald of the government's 'death machine' and the 'number' people taking over the world. It was all a lot of hippy hokem but McDonald, and Country Joe And The Fish, were sincere and honest in their revolutionary beliefs and language, however misguided and naive they may look now. They really did do a good job in helping to give hippies a good name.