Goodbye to “Country” Joe McDonald, the star of Woodstock
His performance at the 1969 Woodstock Festival went down in history. “Country” Joe McDonald performed the anti-Vietnam War protest song “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die-Rag” on stage at the event, paired with a modified version of “The Fish Cheer” that included a call for the audience to scream the word “fuck”. The substitution of the word “Fuck” for “Fish” in the chorus, which became a characteristic element of the shows of the artist’s band, Country Joe & The Fish, caused censorship problems for the group. The Ed Sullivan show canceled their appearance and McDonald was fined in Massachusetts for saying the word “fuck” in public. “Country” Joe McDonald died yesterday, Saturday March 7, at the age of 84. The singer-songwriter, real name Joseph Allen McDonald (his parents, communists, called him Joseph in honor of Stalin’s name), had long suffered from Parkinson’s disease. The news was confirmed by the family.
Born on January 1, 1942 in Washington, D.C., McDonald grew up in El Monte, California, where he began taking his first steps into the world of music by playing trombone with dance bands on weekends. He joined the Navy as a teenager, serving from 1959 to 1962, before returning to Los Angeles to attend state college. He moved to the Bay Area in 1965, where he founded Country Joe and the Fish with guitarist Barry Melton in Berkeley. The band released its debut album, “Electric Music for the Mind and Body,” in 1967. The record included neither “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag” nor “The Fish Cheer,” apparently for fear of censorship, although it did include protest songs such as “Superbird,” which satirized President Lyndon Johnson. The most controversial material ended up on the group’s second album.
Regarding the famous protest song, McDonald stated: «The important thing about ‘Fixin’ to Die Rag’ was that it had a new point of view that didn’t blame the soldiers for the war. He only blamed politicians and weapons manufacturers. He didn’t blame the soldiers.”
