Country Joe McDonald, the well-known Berkeley mainstay and frontman of the legendary Woodstock-era band Country Joe and the Fish died on Saturday at the age of 84.
McDonald died from complications from Parkinson’s disease at his home in Berkeley, according to a post on Facebook from his former band mate and co-lead singer Barry “The Fish” Melton.
McDonald and his band were known for furthering the psychedelic rock genre that helped define the era of Woodstock and opposition to the Vietnam War. He later embarked on a long and successful solo career, according to the biography on his website written by Bill Belmont.
Perhaps his best-known hit was an anti-war anthem sung at Woodstock, “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag.”
In its early days, the band and its members frequently played at the famed Jabberwock coffee house in Berkeley and the Avalon and Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco.
McDonald was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles, El Monte.
He served three years in the U.S. Navy before moving to Berkeley in the 1960s.
His anti-war activism and anthems, including a touring show called F.T.A. — which ostensibly stood for F*** The Army — landed him on then-President Richard Nixon’s famed “enemies list” of political opponents to keep track of.
But in his later years, McDonald helped organize the effort to install a memorial to those who had died in the Vietnam War at Berkeley’s Veterans’ Memorial Hall.
He wrote about the dedication in 1995 and his complicated feelings on the experience in his blog.
“Perhaps the two most important facts about my life that are relevant to the Berkeley Vietnam Veterans Memorial is that, first, I grew up in Southern California with American Communist Party members as parents and realized that Americans are often divided by political ideology,” McDonald wrote.
“Second, I enlisted in the U.S. Navy at the young age of seventeen and served for three years in the U.S. military. By the time large numbers of American combat troops were dispatched to Vietnam in 1965, I was both the child of a radical leftist family and an honorably discharged veteran. Both these experiences left me feeling victimized. I had no love for the leaders of the American military or of the American Left, but I also was not mystified by either entity. I felt a deep camaraderie and respect for the rank and file of both organizations, but I had a healthy knowledge of the capacity of both for betrayal and friendly fire. A life mission did, however, emerge from these experiences that I never was to abandon: to protect those who cannot defend themselves and to remain dedicated to the cause of justice and the dream of peace.”
Melton’s post asked for privacy for McDonald’s family following the announcement of his death.
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