Country Joe McDonald, the anti-war psychedelic folk artist who co-founded Country Joe & The Fish, has died. He was 84.
The Woodstock artist reportedly died on Saturday evening, according to TMZ. The cause of death and other details were not immediately clear.
Born Jan. 1, 1942 in Washington DC, McDonald’s parents were Communists who named him after Joseph Stalin, later renouncing the ideology. The family relocated to El Monte, California, where McDonald grew up and conducted the high school marching band before enlisting in the Navy and spending three years stationed in Japan.
McDonald moved to Berkeley in the ’60s with his first wife, Kathe Werrum, to become a folk musician. There, he became involved with the Free Speech Movement and anti-Vietnam War protests.
After launching San Fran-based folk music magazine, Rag Baby, McDonald was inspired to start a band with Barry ‘The Fish’ Melton, which led to Country Joe & The Fish’s debut on the Rag Baby Talking Issue No. 1 in October 1965, including their signature protest song ‘I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin-to-Die Rag’. They were signed to Vanguard Records the next year, releasing their debut album Electric Music for the Mind and Body in 1967.
The band performed at Woodstock, as well as the first Human Be-In during the Summer of Love, and the Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam. They disbanded after releasing their fifth album CJ Fish in 1970, later releasing their Reunion album in ’77.
McDonald continued recording solo albums up until 50 (2017), most recently appearing on the 2024 collaborative album Bear’s Sonic Journals: Sing Out! In the ’80s, he launched Rag Baby Records with Bill Belmont, under which he released his own music.
As an actor, McDonald starred alongside Bud Cort in Gas-s-s-s-s (1970) appeared in the 1971 Don Johnson film Zachariah, played himself with Country Joe & The Fish in More American Graffiti (1979), and he played Joaquin in the 1993 limited series adaptation of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City.
McDonald is survived by wife Kathy Wright, his children Devin, Seven, Tara, Emily and Ryan, and multiple grandchildren.
English (US) ·