Country joe mcdonald biography of michaels

Country Joe McDonald, lead singer of the psychedelic rock band Country Joe & The Fish, wasn’t supposed to perform at Woodstock as a solo act, but on Saturday afternoon, while the stage was being set for Santana to perform, he was asked to fill some time and keep the audience entertained. What he did on stage became an important part of the Woodstock legacy and the beginning of the next phase of Joe’s career.

Day Two, Performer 2: Country Joe McDonald

Performed Saturday afternoon, August 16, – pm

Country Joe McDonald: guitar, vocals

Country Joe McDonald's Woodstock Setlist

1. Janis
2. Donovan's Reef
3. Heartaches by the Number
4. Ring of Fire
5. Tennessee Stud
6. Rockin' Round the World
7. Flying High
8. I Seen a Rocket
9. The "Fish" Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag

Born in Washington, D.C. at the dawn of World War II, Joseph Allen McDonald grew up in the Los Angeles suburb of El Monte, California. Joe was raised in a left-leaning household (his parents had once been card-carrying Communists, and they named him after Joseph Stalin). His early and frequent contact with political activity in support of labor unions, farmworkers, and other leftist and progressive causes shaped his ideas and actions for the rest of his life. Although neither parent was particularly musical, Joe was also exposed to myriad musical styles in Southern California, playing trombone in jazz bands in high school and guitar in various folk groups. Then, after he graduated from high school, Joe joined the U.S. Navy.

In , McDonald was out of the Navy and back in Southern California. He lived with various family members while attending Mt. San Antonio Junior College and L.A. State College. It was there that he met future collaborator Blair Hardman, started a radical magazine called Et Tu, and married his first wife, Kathe Werum. By , McDonald got the itch to move to Berkeley, ostensibly to study at U.C. Berkel

Street Spirit Interview by Terry Messman

Street Spirit: Robert W. Service called his poems about war “songs from the slaughter mill.” How did it happen that an acid-rock musician of the Vietnam eara transformed poems written about World War I into a powerful musical statement in your album War War War?
Country Joe McDonald: When I got out of the Navy and was going to Los Angeles State College, I got a job working in East L.A. at a breaded fish factory. When I was coming home from work, I stopped at a used bookstore, and I saw a book called Rhymes of a Red Cross Man. I took it home and read the poems by Robert W. Service.
His brother was killed in World War I and he himself was a Red Cross man during the war — a stretcher bearer and ambulance driver. I knew about his frivolous, entertaining poems set in the Yukon, like “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” But I was really struck by his poems about war; they’re very different. I just thought they were great.
Spirit: Why were his poems so meaningful to you?
McDonald: They were poignant or humorous poems that were approaching war from different points of view. I just liked them and I thought they were really good. And I liked the little watercolor paintings that were in it. One particular poem, “The Ballad of Jean Desprez,” really affected me.
Spirit: You gave a very emotional performance of “Jean Desprez” on your album. Why were you particularly drawn to that poem?
McDonald: It’s a story of a peasant boy who tries to save a wounded French soldier against the German soldiers. He’s given a choice in the end of this very long ballad. In the end, this little boy turns on his oppressor and shoots. It’s a surprise ending. I put it together with music when I first moved to Berkeley in the mids, and I knew it was great, because it’s a ballad about eight minutes long, but when I got to the end, I started crying because it was so dramatic. And the melody I

BERKELEY — A quarter-century after he charmed Woodstock with the anti-Establishment “Fixin’ to Die Rag,” Country Joe McDonald may be changing his tune from notes to votes.

McDonald, once the lead singer for Country Joe and the Fish, is considering a run for the Berkeley City Council.

“One, two, three, who are we voting for? That definitely will be my campaign slogan,” he said.

He joked that he was partly motivated by “the idea of having my own parking space,” but said he’s taking a possible race seriously.

“I would bring the same creativity to government that I bring to my music,” McDonald said. “I’m not going to do it without support, and I’m not going to do it if it doesn’t make economic sense in my life, because I’m not a rich person.”

If McDonald runs, he would file papers next summer, the 25th anniversary of Woodstock.

“I find that kind of amusing,” said the year-old McDonald.

McDonald’s anti-war ditty, the full title of which is the “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag,” began “One, two, three, what are we fighting for? Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn. Next stop is Vietnam.”

If he runs for office he would be following one-two-three in the footsteps of the Fish, a.k.a. Barry Melton, who made an unsuccessful run for a city judgeship in San Francisco last year.

“When Barry ran, I really wasn’t thinking (of trying for office),” McDonald said. Then Mayor Loni Hancock said she wouldn’t run for reelection and Councilwoman Shirley Dean said she would run for mayor, leaving an open seat.

“I had a desire to counterbalance the power in Berkeley,” McDonald said.

Long famous as “Berzerkeley” for its radical politics, Berkeley has taken quite a few steps to the middle in recent years. The once-powerful Berkeley Citizens Action Party lost control of the council, debates over foreign policies have been replaced by plans t

studio album by Country Joe McDonald

Superstitious Blues is an album by the American musician Country Joe McDonald, released in 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.

Production

Jerry Garcia played guitar on the album; Sandy Rothman contributed dobro. "Eunecita" was written in , but remained unrecorded for almost two decades. "Clara Barton" is a tribute to the founder of the American Red Cross; "Blues for Michael" is about Mike Bloomfield. McDonald was supposed to sing at the American Red Cross annual convention, but was uninvited due to his Gulf War protest. McDonald, in contrast to some of his peers, was happy to employ digital recording during the making of the album.

Critical reception

Entertainment Weekly called the album "both uneven and surprising," but acknowledged that the McDonald-Garcia "guitar team-up on the pretty country-folk tune 'Standing at the Crossroads' is a blissful pleasure."The Boston Globe wrote that, "in backing McDonald, [Garcia] returns to fluid acoustic musings that evoke the Dead's American Beauty and Workingman's Dead."

The Sun Sentinel determined that "the shift from broader politics to personal themes reflects McDonald's maturation both as an artist and an activist."The Philadelphia Inquirer called the album "poignant, pretty and powerful, yet almost understated Its songs range from the moody, moderately psychedelic instrumental 'Tranquility' to 'Standing at the Crossroads', a country waltz."The State concluded that "the beauty of this disc is its simplic