‘And it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting for…’
Probably came to the attention of people (like me) of a certain vintage with his rendition of ‘I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag’ at Woodstock in the ’60’s, he has died at age 84. I believe he continued his varied career until fairly recently. Finally succumbed to Parkinsons Disease.
And we still don’t really know what we’re fighting for
Oh my. Electric Music for the Mind and Body was one of the psychedelic classics I was introduced to at uni, along with An Electrhc Storm, Camembert Électrique, and Happy Trails. A beautiful album from a happy, innocent optimistic time (for Joe and for me).
Born the same year as my dad it turns out, though with a completely different life trajectory, he succumbed to the same disease that took my old man two years earlier.
They’re both flying high now*
*I’m sorry, I know that’s cheesy, but it’s a great song
Four LPs for the ages, Sal…
I’m glad we agree, fs.
I’ve just listened to Electric Music for the Mind and Body for the first time in decades, and it’s extraordinary how nearly every note has been lurking in my brain all this time.
Happy times indeed, although if I’m honest it all sounds a little amateurish and unfinished now, and Barry Melton’s guitar playing is annoyingly widdly and weedy. (I have just discovered that the Fish in Country Joe and the Fish is Barry ‘The Fish’ Melton. It never occurred to me to wonder that back in 1967.)
It’s no Forever Changes or Surrealistic Pillow – or Happy Trails, come to that.
You could be right about their amateurishness. Maybe these things are best left in the subconscious memory, where they can trail away happily, forever unchanged, leaking out into dreams like a surrealist pillow case of windy insubstance.
Well, Electric Music for the Mind and Body (which I first heard in the mid-80s after seeing the Monterey Pop doc, where their Section 43 sequence is the trippiest moment in the film) still sounds great to me: a mixture of acerbic pop sarcasm and spooky Californian psychedelia (Don’t drop acid in a desert).
Section 43 is a great favourite of mine, and its somewhat amateurish nature is a strong part of its appeal – wonky Farfisa, meandering guitar and bass lines, odd tempo changes, unexpected gaps, willfully wiggly-ness and just being wonderfully full of fun.
Thanks, Country Joe for all the optimistic musical exuberance and innocence. Condolences to family and friends.
Played that on my radio show the other night. Starts off well but that wonky farfisa, as you described it, gets on your tits after a while. Had to fade it out.
It’s tricky dicky from yorba Linda, hip hip hip hooray
It’s tricky dicky from yorba Linda, hip hip hip hooray
He walks, he talks, he smiles he frowns, he does what a human can
It’s tricky dicky from yorba Linda,
He’s a genuine plastic man
One of the first ‘proper’ songs I learned to play on guitar. I think I was still at school. I wish someone would write something similar about you know who.
Sad news. I think “Electric Music” is one of the finest psychedelic albums to come out San Francisco in the 1960s. The follow-up – “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die” – is pretty good too, with Who Am I? perhaps my favourite song from McDonald. “Here We Are Again” also has its moments.
I came across this live number recently. It always cheers me up when I listen to it.
Very much wedded to the “alternative” scene, right from the start.
He got the nickname “Country Joe” in reference to Josef Stalin’s nickname of Country Joe.
Barry “The Fish” Melton got his nickname from something Mao Tse Tung said about revolutionaries. How “they move like fish among the people”.
Barry Melton is now the only surviving member of the “Electric Music …” band. Still playing occasionally and a defence lawyer in California, semi-retired.
This is a favourite CJ&TF track.
I always liked this one with its CSN&Y vibe