Country Joe McDonald, the singer with the San Francisco psychedelic band Country Joe & The Fish, has died aged 84.
The news was confirmed today (March 8) on the band’s social media accounts. “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 statement read. “He was surrounded by his family.”
McDonald was best known for writing the anti-Vietnam War anthem ‘I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag’, a song that went on to become one of the defining statements of the counterculture movement in the late 1960s.
He formed Country Joe & The Fish with guitarist Barry ‘The Fish’ Melton in 1965 and they quickly became one of the most influential groups in the San Francisco music scene of the era, which was seen as the epicentre of flower power, psychedelia and free love.
Their music fused elements of folk, acid rock and protest, with McDonald’s politics regularly front and centre. Their 1967 debut album ‘Electric Music For Mind And Body’ was named by NME as one of the 10 best psychedelic albums of all time in 2012.
‘I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag’, which McDonald first released independently in 1965, was a satirical reaction to events in Vietnam, and was re-recorded as the title track of the band’s second album two years later.
McDonald famously played a solo set at Woodstock in 1969, where he led the crowd in a singalong of ‘The Fish Cheer’, in which he encouraged them to spell out the word “fuck”, something for which he had been arrested at previous shows. The performance was later included in the documentary film Woodstock.
Country Joe & The Fish split up shortly after the festival, with McDonald embarking on a solo career that left behind psychedelia and shifted back towards his folk roots. He recorded albums of songs by Woody Guthrie, who he considered to be his songwriting hero, and he was later called to testify in the trial of the Chicago Seven.
His work continued to address serious political issues, from social justice to the environmental crisis, and recorded over 30 solo albums. He worked with Vietnam War veterans’ associations, and continued writing and performing up until the 2010s.