Country Joe & The Fish

Berkeley

Country Joe and the Fish formed in Berkeley, California, in 1965 around Joe McDonald and Barry Melton, two folk musicians who admired Woody Guthrie. McDonald published a magazine, Rag Baby, with ED Denson, and began issuing audio supplements he called talking issues. The first was an EP in October 1965, pressed in a run of 100 copies and sold at a Berkeley teach-in. It carried an acoustic version of I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag. Denson, who became the manager, coined the name, a reference to Josef Stalin and to Mao's description of revolutionaries as fish swimming in the sea of the people. Their first show under it was on 5 November 1965 at UC Berkeley, on a bill with The Fugs and Allen Ginsberg.

Melton said the turning point came when he and McDonald saw the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in Berkeley and decided to play electric. David Cohen, who had played guitar, moved to organ after Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited. The band relocated to San Francisco early in 1966 and played the Avalon and the Fillmore. A second EP, recorded on 6 June 1966, held Thing Called Love, Bass Strings and the instrumental Section 43. Progressive radio stations spread it as far as New York. Through Cohen's connections with the producer Samuel Charters, they signed to Vanguard Records in December 1966.

Electric Music

Charters produced the first album in the opening week of February 1967 at Sierra Sound Laboratories in Berkeley, with Gary Hirsh by then on drums. Electric Music for the Mind and Body came out on 11 May 1967 and reached number 39 on the Billboard 200. Its lead single, Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine, was the only one the band put on the singles chart. The record also held Grace, written for Grace Slick, and Superbird, a song aimed at President Lyndon Johnson. Uncut later called the album a game changer. The band played the Monterey International Pop Festival on 17 June 1967.

Charters had held back the Rag from that album until he saw whether Superbird would draw a radio ban. It did not, so the song opened I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die, recorded at Vanguard's New York studio in July and August 1967 and released in November. It peaked at 67. Ahead of the song the band added a spelled-out cheer. In summer 1968, at the Schaefer Music Festival in New York, Hirsh suggested a different four-letter word for it. The band's scheduled Ed Sullivan Show appearance did not take place, and McDonald said the band was paid to stay off the show.

Together and Woodstock

Together, released in August 1968, had songwriting from every member and went to 23, the band's best chart showing. Bruce Barthol left that September. The classic lineup played a farewell run at the Fillmore West from 9 to 11 January 1969, with Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane on bass and guests including Jerry Garcia. Here We Are Again followed in July 1969 with strings and brass for the first time, and Casady, David Getz and Peter Albin sitting in. It reached 48.

On 16 August 1969 McDonald walked on alone at Woodstock and closed a solo set with the cheer and the Rag. The performance was filmed for the Woodstock movie, released on 26 March 1970. The band's final lineup, with Mark Kapner on keyboards, Doug Metzner on bass and Greg Dewey on drums, also played the festival on the third day. CJ Fish appeared in May 1970 and reached 111. By mid-1970 the members lacked the motivation to keep touring and recording, and the group disbanded.

After

McDonald recorded more than thirty solo albums. The 1967 lineup made Reunion in 1977, and McDonald, Barthol, Cohen and Hirsh toured as the Country Joe Band in 2004. In 2017 McDonald and Alec Palao formed The Electric Music Band to play the first album in full. Melton qualified as a lawyer in 1982 and retired in 2009 as chief public defender of Yolo County, California. McDonald died in Berkeley on 7 March 2026, aged 84.