Joseph McDonald, lead singer and co-founder of ’60s psychedelic folk rock band Country Joe and the Fish, has died, according to multiple media reports. He was 84.
McDonald stamped his band into history with the solo Woodstock performance of the anti-Vietnam War anthem “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag,” a performance that began with the call-and-response “Fish Cheer,” which started with an F – but led the crowd to shout an expletive.
McDonald died Saturday in in Berkeley, California, of Parkinson’s, his wife, Kathy, and the band said in a statement to several media outlets.
“We are deeply saddened to report the passing of Country Joe McDonald, who died yesterday, March 7th, at the age of 84, in Berkeley, California, due to complications from Parkinson’s Disease,” the band said Sunday.
McDonald’s band was a fixture in the San Francisco psychedelic scene, along with bands like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, and became one of the defining voices of the Vietnam protest movement.
McDonald stayed active as a performer in the decades to come, with a fusion of folk, psychedelic rock and support for veterans and social justice issues.
McDonald was born Joseph Allen McDonald on Jan. 1, 1942, in Washington, D.C., and grew up in El Monte, California. His parents, Florence Plotnick McDonald and Worden McDonald, came from politically engaged backgrounds and had briefly been members of the Communist Party in their youth, naming their son after Soviet leader Joseph Stalin before later abandoning the ideology. McDonald showed early musical ability in school, serving as student conductor and president of his high school marching band.
At 17, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and spent three years stationed in Japan. After leaving the service, he attended California State Los Angeles for a year before moving to Berkeley in the early 1960s with the aim of becoming a folk musician. There he busked on Telegraph Avenue and worked at Lundberg Fretted Instruments, a guitar shop that served as a hub for the local folk community.
Deep in the ferment of the Berkeley folk scene, McDonald performed on KPFA’s influential radio program “The Midnight Special” and played with several early groups, including the Berkeley String Quartet and the Instant Action Jug Band, the latter with guitarist Barry “The Fish” Melton. The two musicians soon became central figures in the burgeoning countercultural scene around UC Berkeley.
Country Joe and the Fish quickly became one of the defining acts of the San Francisco psychedelic movement. Their debut album, “Electric Music for the Mind and Body” (1967), spent 38 weeks on the Billboard charts and is widely regarded as a landmark of psychedelic rock.
The band followed with “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die” later in 1967, whose title track became one of the most recognizable protest songs of the Vietnam War era. McDonald wrote the song in about 20 minutes for an antiwar play, later telling The New York Times he aimed to capture “how soldiers have no choice in the matter, but to follow orders, but with the irreverence of rock ’n’ roll.”
After the group dissolved in the early 1970s, McDonald continued recording and performing as a solo artist. His early solo albums included “Thinking of Woody Guthrie” (1969) and “Tonight, I’m Singing Just for You” (1970), reflecting the influence of the folk legend he had admired since childhood. Over the decades he released dozens of albums and remained active on the folk circuit.
Across a career that spanned more than six decades, McDonald recorded more than 30 albums and wrote hundreds of songs. Though best remembered for his role in the 1960s protest movement, he remained a touring musician and interpreter of folk traditions well into the 21st century, frequently performing programs devoted to the songs and writings of Woody Guthrie.
