SANTA CRUZ SENTINEL

Mary McCaslin's Roundup

April 2, 2009

COUNTRY JOE McDONALD’S 40^TH ANNIVERSARY WOODSTOCK SHOW

IF YOU GO:

WHAT – Country Joe McDonald’s 40^th Anniversary Woodstock Show

WHERE – Don Quixote’s Music Hall, 6275 Hwy 9, Felton

WHEN – Sat, April 4, 8 p.m.

DETAILS – 603-2294 or www.donquixotesmusic.com

Mid-August marks the 40^th anniversary of one of the most famous musical and cultural events of our age – the Woodstock Festival. Volumes have been written about this event and the Woodstock movie has become a classic for those of a certain age who want to reminisce or fantasize about being there.

Tomorrow night local music fans will have the opportunity to share in celebrating the memory of this momentous occasion with someone who was not only there, but who played one of the most memorable performances of the Festival. Country Joe McDonald plays at Don Quixote’s Music Hall in Felton starting at 8 p.m.

Country Joe was born in Washington, D.C. in 1942 and grew up in the Los Angeles suburb of El Monte, where in the 1950s and `60s he attended many of the shows at the El Monte Legion Stadium. He saw gospel, R & B, Rock & Roll and country artists and was influenced by them all. His family had moved from Washington to California after World War II to escape the political climate in Washington. He and his brother and sister were known as “red diaper babies,” the offspring of political leftists, who were often accused of being Communists or who were Communists. His upbringing has been a life-long cornerstone for his activism and the long musical career, which would take him all over the world.

Joe moved to Berkeley in the early 1960s ostensibly to go to school, but ended up playing music in numerous bands and working at Lundberg’s Guitar Shop. In the fall of 1965 members of the FSM (Free Speech Movement) were organizing a series of demonstrations against the Vietnam War at the Oakland Induction Center. The anti-war organizers wanted to provide entertainment before or after the march to hold the people’s attention, so Joe and some others played. This was during the era that a big part of the folk revival was starting to turn into the rock scene in San Francisco and “bands” were starting to appear almost everywhere. Joe had been editing a magazine he founded called Rag Baby, and he apparently ran out of material. He got the idea of doing a “talking” issue and an EP was pressed with four songs on it: two by “Country Joe and the Fish” and two by folksinger Peter Krug. It contained the original recorded version of “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag” and Joe’s parody of President Lyndon Johnson, “Superbird.” The group was a loose assortment of friends and acquaintances performing jug band type material, most of which was Joe’s. After a time Joe and Barry Melton put together a rock band called Country Joe and the Fish. The original name appears to have come from their manager, Ed Denson, founder of Kicking Mule Records, who coined the phrase from Mao’s saying about “fish who swim in the sea of the people.” The “Country Joe” part has numerous variants, the most often told being that Joe’s parents named him after Joseph Stalin, who was known as Country Joe during World War II.

The band worked regularly in the Bay Area and signed a recording contract with Vanguard Records, but strangely, was not allowed to put “Fixin’ to Die” on their first recording. However, he did perform it at Woodstock, along with the famed “Fish Cheer” And the rest, they say, is history.