Rock n roll, soul, pop and country. The hits were our hits: I Feel-Like-Im-Fixin-to-Die Rag, Fortunate Son and the song more than one Vietnam veteran has called our national anthem, the Animals We Gotta Get Out of This Place.. It was certainly the biggest. ", followed immediately by the song. For those born after the last helicopters sank beneath the waves of the South China Sea, movies, documentaries and TV shows have repeatedly used music as a sonic background for depicting Vietnam as a tug of war between pro-war hawks and pro-peace doves. This series of articles32 in allcovers each of the artists who performed at the original Woodstock festival August 1518, 1969. In the 2008 HBO mini-series Generation Kill, a group of Marines on Humvee patrol belt it out in unison. Were all going to die capper. Kaili Bisson (author) from Canada on April 07, 2019: Hippie stuff for sure! For the men and women like me who served in Southeast Asia, music was what inexorably linked us to my generation. We sang along to the Beatles, Nancy Sinatra, Marty Robbins and the Temptations before we went to war, and we listened to them after we came back home. 1980) from his marriage to Janice Taylor, and Emily (b. Street Spirit Interview with Country Joe McDonald Pt 1 6.Recent Work, The origin of the name appears to have come from the band's manager, ED Denson, who coined the phrase drawing from Mao's saying about "the fish who swim in the sea of the people;" the Country Joe part has numerous variants, the most oft-told refers to Joe's parents having named Joe for Joseph Stalin, whose nickname during World War II was "Country Joe.". When Woodstock, the movie hit the theaters, "Fixin' To Die Rag" was in the middle of the film, with its lyrics spelled out, highlighted with a bouncing ball, including the "Cheer" and copious remarks about how many people seemed to be in the audience. As Michael Kramer observes in The Republic of Rock, the music of the 1960s and early 70s gave the generation a sonic framework for thinking, feeling, discussing and dancing out the vexing problems of democratic togetherness and individual liberation.. Some of the artists also appeared at Woodstock: Neil Young, Graham Nash, John Sebastian, Richie Havens and Sha Na Na. Love. I dont think anyone would have believed it, McDonald said last week. His mother, Florence Plotnick, was the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants and served for many years on the Berkeley City Council. Joe's last album for Vanguard was recorded in New York and later released as Country Joe. Last edited on 28 February 2023, at 01:20, The "Fish" Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag, Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies, The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, "Country Joe McDonald Revives Anti-War Anthem", "Country Joe McDonald, The Country Joe Band", "Show 42 The Acid Test: Psychedelics and a sub-culture emerge in San Francisco. Chile07. Jesse James09. In 2017, McDonald released an album on his own Rag Baby label entitled 50. [4][5][6] In their youth, both were Communist Party members and named their son after Joseph Stalin, before renouncing the cause. Country Joe Band, Country Joe McDonald - AllMusic Security was thin. Navy veteran Country Joe McDonald, lower right, and his band Country Joe and The Fish. Subscribe Log In Manage. Also recorded with this group was Joe's 1973 Vanguard album Paris Sessions. Five Musical Facts About Country Joe McDonald. It features liner notes by Studs Terkel and Joe's parody of Nixon "Tricky Dicky". It was time for the second act on the second day of a 1969 music festival in upstate New York, but the band, Santana, was having trouble getting it together. But Beatty Barnes feels the city-sponsored Harlem festival, which was showcased in two network TV specials, showed people didn't have to go far to come together around music. Country Joe McDonald, Biography Relatively unknown, Santana was a festival hit. This was later released in 1972 as Incredible Live. His road manager gave him the go-ahead, and McDonald's anti-war anthem was met with a frenzy of clapping, singing, and standing ovations. More than any other American war, Vietnam had a soundtrack, and you listened to it whether you were marching in the jungle or in the streets. Although McDonald had played then-recent anti-Gulf War rallies, the album is made up of personal, not political, songs.McDonald considered making Superstitious Blues his final album; it was his first album in 12 years to be distributed by a label other than his own. 1988) and Ryan (b. The show was part of the Harlem Cultural Festival, a concert series that would later be dubbed a "Black Woodstock.". Soldiers played it in their hooches on top-of-the-line tape decks theyd purchase cheap at the PX or via mail order from Japan; they listened to it over headphones in helicopters and planes. Country Joe and the Fish: Feel Like I'm Fixin to Die Rag - Vietnam War Neil Youngs Ohio resonated in ways political and personal, too, since many of us Vietnam-era soldiers were the same age as the students killed at Kent State and the National Guardsmen who fired at them. In keeping with the project's goal we are compiling a list of casualties from various sources. Mr. McDonald continued recording, putting out more than 30 albums, including this years 50, marking his five decades in the music business. I was only a young teen back then but I imagine some of the performers were amazing and made history. I was sued by my McDonald's coworkers after winning $105m . His tour manager said that since nobody was paying attention, why not do the number he was saving for tomorrow night? That was a revelation to me., https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/opinion/country-joe-vietnam-woodstock.html. After being discharged, Mr. McDonald tried college for a few semesters before dropping out and landing in Berkeley. But having enlisted in the Navy at 17 and been stationed as an air traffic controller at the Atsugi, Japan, air facility until his honorable discharge in. culminating with a song originally written for the TV documentary Secret Agent -- "The Girl Next Door". In 1990 this is commonplace, but in the early 70s it was quite outrageous. The women's movement had become viable and by adding women to his band, he hoped it would at least indicate to others that they were no different as musicians than men. They also had a penchant for self-promotion and printed up posters and calendars using the style of the times. One for sure was Hendrix and his version of "The Star Spangled Banner." says Beatty Barnes, who became a Broadway actress and singer. The Woodstock audience did include at least one Vietnam veteran, snapped in a well-known photo. It was haunted by military intelligence and the FBI though curiously not to the point of actually disrupting its activities -- just a subtle presence, and one which rewarded Joe with a spot on President Richard Nixon's enemies list. [14] McDonald has noted that his girlfriend at the time, Janis Joplin, showed much anger for breaking up with her to be with Menken but asked him to write a song about her; the result was "Janis". 1976) and Tara (b. (AP File Photo). In fact, McDonald and a host of other musicians, actors and athletes will be cheered as they lead an event billed as the official welcome home celebration for our Vietnam veterans.. While on tour in Scandinavia, he was asked by concert promoter and film producer Knud Thorbjorsen to write some songs for a film production of Henry Miller's classic book Quiet Days In Clichy. He befriended members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, including conscientious objectors who were sent over as unarmed medics, only to find themselves in the thick of combat. I served three years and change, two in Japan, and it wasnt a bad experience, I didnt come out with anti-military views. George Deukmejians drive to build a Vietnam memorial in California. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Country Joe McDonald - Full Concert - 10/27/73 - YouTube If you were fortunate enough to return home from Vietnam, music echoed through those secret places where you stored memories, including some you never shared with your parents, spouse or children for decades. They appeared on Day 3 of the festival. But hey -- 2023 is going to be fabulous . Get our L.A. NEW YORK (AP) It was the weekend that shaped the image of a Woodstock Generation. And that image would echo, appeal and provoke for generations to come. Country Joe McDonald on Apple Music Since then, titles such as Superstitious Blues and Thank the Nurse have emerged from the Rag Baby label. His upcoming album is titled The Vietnam Experience, and the latest issue of Tape Talk, Rag Babys audio cassette magazine, features music of Vietnam veterans. "The Queen of Psychedelic Soul," Janis Joplin. In the summer of 1967, they were offered a series of gigs on the East Coast. [14] In 1968, Menken gave birth to the couple's first daughter, Seven Anne McDonald, in San Francisco. Jefferson Airplane had finished their set just after 08:00 a.m., allowing the crowd to finally get some shut-eye. The dynamic was complicated by musics peculiar status as both a center of political or cultural resistance and a manifestation of Americas high-tech supremacy. Then something changed, Killer Mike goes off: Right now, in this country, your freedom of speech is at risk, Rihanna has Smurfs on the brain for her next movie: Hope this gives me cool points, Sexual assault began at 13, Runaways songwriter says; her suit names ex-KROQ DJ, band manager, Smokey Robinson on love, Motown and sex at 83: I feel as good as I felt when I was 40, Fugees rapper Pras found guilty of political conspiracy. Things changed in the summer of 1968 at the Schaefer Music Festival in Central Park, when the bands drummer, Gary Hirsh, suggested altering the cheer, replacing fish with a four-letter expletive. The Ed Sullivan Show then canceled a previously scheduled appearance by the band, telling them to keep the money they had already been paid in exchange for never playing on the show. By December 1966, they had a recording contract with Vanguard Records, the home to progressive acts like the Weavers and Joan Baez. Between that and the communist card carrying stuff, trying to get the ROTC kicked off campus, etc. President Joe Biden announces 2024 reelection campaign The Fish Cheer/I-Feel-Like-Im-Fixin-to-Die Rag. The first Country Joe and the Fish record was released in 1965, in time for the Vietnam Day Teach-In anti-war protest in Berkeley, California. By the next year Joe and his wife Robin had agreed to take part in an agit-prop theater group The F.T.A. McDonald's work on behalf of veterans has been widely recognized and appreciated, and he remains an advocate for their rights and well-being. We can make some of it into a sociological thing, and some of it we can make into the fact 15-year-old boys like to curse.. [10] The modified cheer continued at most of the band's live shows throughout the years, including Woodstock and elsewhere. Born on January 1, 1942 to a leftist-oriented family, McDonald was named in honor of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Joe's parents, Florence and Worden, had moved there after the War, World War II that is, when they began to have difficulties of a political kind. "The music spoke for us. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. The album has some of Mr. McDonalds old progressive spirit, like the anti-firearm song Era of Guns, and he occasionally performs with the (much younger) Electric Music Band. So the M.C. By Joe McDonald, AP Thursday, Apr 27 FILE - China's President Xi Jinping arrives to attend the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, APEC summit, Nov. 19 . The first Country Joe and the Fish record was released in 1965, in time for the Vietnam Day Teach-In anti-war protest in Berkeley, California. and it's only 5 days away. They toured Europe in the fall of 1968 and recorded a fourth LP, Here We Are Again, in the late spring of 1969. and one that would become his signature song, "I Feel Like I'm Fixin'-to-Die Rag.". But what she remembers most was happening in the crowd concertgoers meeting each other, sharing what they had, playing guitars together. As for McDonalds involvement in the issue, Talley said simply, Joe is definitely Mr. Vietnam--an assessment with which the singer concurs. Day 2 at Woodstock meant the rock acts were up, and the 12th act to appear on Saturday (actually Sunday a.m.) was funk-rock band, Sly and the Family Stone. Country Joe McDonald The Early Years Rare 1978 Picc-A - eBay With the crucial exception of combat, music was ubiquitous in Vietnam, reaching soldiers via albums, cassettes and tapes of radio shows sent from home; on the Armed Forces Vietnam Network, featuring songs from stateside Top 40 stations; and on the legendary, if short-lived, underground broadcasts of Radio First Termer, a pirate station operated out of Saigon. It comes out of a tradition of G.I. I dont think that being a veteran is acceptable today in any mainstream sense, and I find that a very strange contradiction in the American mind-set, he said. It was the mid-1960s, just as the Free Speech movement on campus was morphing into the antiwar movement. Country Joe and the Fish - Wikipedia He sang one of the great anthems of the era, "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag," to an audience of half-million at the Woodstock Arts and Music Festival in 1969. Why China is trying to mediate in Russia's war with Ukraine rally in front of the Alamo. Country Joe and the Fish was an American rock band of the 1960s, fronted by United States Navy veteran Joe McDonald. After all these years, what Mr. McDonald holds closest about the song is the way it was received by Vietnam veterans. He started performing at folk clubs and coffeehouses, and even started his own magazine called "Rag Baby" which featured the San Francisco folk music scene. [16] Seven was the subject of and inspiration behind the song "Silver and Gold". During the summer of 1968 the band played on the Schaefer Music Festival tour. Barry Sadlers The Ballad of the Green Berets, the No. [7]. The "we" included performances by Jack Casady of the Jefferson Airplane and David Getz and Peter Albin from Big Brother and the Holding Company. 2. McDonald, 44, never served in Vietnam. McDonald has recorded 33 albums and has written hundreds of songs over a career spanning 60 years. [10] Gary "Chicken" Hirsh suggested before one of the shows to spell the word "fuck" instead of "fish". Notable for their arrangements and the players on them, they were all well crafted; Planet Earth, however, was the first recording Joe had done using Los Angeles studio musicians most of whom went on to achieve individual success in their own right. In this Aug. 17, 1969 photo, workers carry medical supplies that arrived by helicopter on the grounds of the Woodstock Music and Art Festival in Bethel, N.Y. (AP). I believe if we had the music of all these different armies, all the infantries everywhere, youd have the same attitude expressed within their songs that we expressed in ours.. The album had no fewer than five songs that played constantly on FM radio including two major singles "Breakfast For Two" and "Save The Whales." Kim Jong Un's sister insults Biden and slams U.S. defense agreement Country Joe McDonald, Soundtrack: Taking Woodstock. Breda didnt go to Woodstock looking for a societal vision. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Country Joe McDonald - Hold On It's Coming - Used Vinyl Record - J16280A at the best online prices at eBay! He went on to produce a musical rendition of the World War I poems of Robert Service, a collection of country and western standards, "Vietnam Experience" in 1985, "Superstitious Blues" in 1991 with Jerry Garcia, and an album of songs about nursing in 2002. He did and the resulting songs, "Mara," "Ny's Song," "Hungry Miller and the Hungry World" and the title song "Quiet Days In Clichy" were released on a Vanguard album as part of the soundtrack. Country Joe McDonald, WWII Plaque Formed in Berkeley, California in 1965, the band was founded by Country Joe McDonald and Barry "The Fish" Melton. Later in 2005, political commentator Bill O'Reilly compared McDonald to Cuban President Fidel Castro, remarking on McDonald's involvement in Cindy Sheehan's protests against the Iraq War.[13]. In Worcester, Massachusetts, McDonald was arrested for obscenity and fined $500 for uttering "fuck" in public. Keep it Clean. It was an early lesson about how powerful music can be.. I was inspired to write a folk song about how soldiers have no choice in the matter but to follow orders, but with the irreverence of rock n roll. His first big audience was at a V.V.A.W. Joel Brodsky/Vanguard Records, via GAB Archive -- Redferns -- Getty Images. ")[8] is well known to the Woodstock generation and Vietnam veterans of the 1960s and '70s. He considers the song to be essentially punk before punk existed. The New York City show, at the Cafe Au Go-Go was the first time a light show had been brought to New York. Superstitious Blues is an album by the American folk rock musician Country Joe McDonald, released in 1991. Electric Music For The Mind And Body in its entirety, and band members include Palao, the Rain Parade's Matt Piucci and Derek See of the Chocolate Watchband. There are conflicting reports about when McDonald performed at Woodstock. I had wished for a great virus-free year in 2022, but it's not looking so good. The label released albums by Terry and The Pirates, featuring most of Quicksilver Messenger Service, Woody's youngest son Joady Guthrie, Rocky Sullivan and a solo piano effort by Fish keyboardist David Bennet Cohen. Satisfactory10. Though he continues to perform and support a broad array of progressive causes, if you didn't know anything about his past, you'd think McDonald was just another middle-aged man enjoying life. With both numbers preserved on film and record--complete with bouncing ball for the sing-along--they remain among Woodstocks most recognized moments. 5.Back in Berkeley Just about all the guys I served with in Vietnam in 1970 and 1971 laughed at Edwin Starrs War because we knew better than he did that it was good for absolutely nothin., Many of those tensions and crosscurrents came to a head around Country Joe McDonald, the guiding spirit of Country Joe and the Fish, whose unplanned, slightly reluctant performance of I-Feel-Like-Im-Fixin-to-Die Rag at Woodstock in August 1969 placed a veterans perspective on Vietnam at the center of musical protest. McDonald's stage name included "Country Joe," which was Joseph Stalin's nickname.
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