Country Joe

Country Joe biography

Country Joe McDonald (born Joseph Allen McDonald; January 1, 1942) is an American musician who was the lead singer of the 1960s psychedelic rock group Country Joe and the Fish.

Biography

Personal

McDonald was born in Washington, D.C., At the age of 17, he enlisted in the United States Navy. After his enlistment, he attended Los Angeles City College for a year. In the early 1960s, he began busking on the famous Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, California. As of 2009, Country Joe still lives in Berkeley, California.

McDonald was married to Kathe Werrum from 1965 to 1966 and married Robin Menken a year after his divorce from Werrum. In 1968, Menken gave birth to the couple's first daughter, Seven Anne McDonald, in San Francisco. Seven, currently a columnist for LA Weekly, had a previous career as a TV child actor in the late 1970s and early 1980s, managed Johnny Depp's Viper Room nightclub and the alternative rock band Smashing Pumpkins in the 1990s , and wrote for Details, Elle and Harper's Bazaar magazines in the 1990s and 2000s. According to Ron Cabral's biography on Country Joe and the Fish, Seven was the subject of and inspiration behind the song Silver and Gold.

McDonald has four other children, Devin (b. 1978) and Tara (b. 1982) from his marriage to Janice Taylor and Emily (b. 1988) and Ryan (b. 1991) from his marriage to Kathy Wright.

Career

McDonald has recorded 33 albums and has written hundreds of songs over a career spanning 40 years. He and Barry Melton co-founded Country Joe & the Fish which became a pioneer psychedelic rock band with their eclectic performances at The Avalon Ballroom, The Fillmore, Monterey Pop Festival and both the original and the reunion Woodstock Festivals.

Their best known song is his "The "Fish" Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag," a black comedy novelty song about the Vietnam War, whose familiar chorus ("One, two, three, what are we fighting for?") is well known to the Woodstock generation and Vietnam veterans of the 1960s and 1970s. The "Fish Cheer" was the band performing a call-and-response with the audience, spelling the word "fish", followed by Country Joe yelling, "What's that spell?" twice, with the audience responding, and then, the third time, "What's that smell?", followed immediately by the song. The "Fish Cheer" evolved into the "Fuck Cheer" after the Berkeley free speech movement.

The cheer was on the original recording of the I-Feel-Like-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag, being played right before the song on the LP of the same name. The cheer became popular and the crowd would spell out F-I-S-H when the band performed live. During the summer of 1968 the band played on the Schaefer Music Festival tour. Gary "Chicken" Hirsh suggested before one of the shows to spell the word "fuck" instead of "fish." Although the crowd loved it, the management of the Schaefer Beer Festival did not and kicked the band off the tour for life. 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.

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