Country Joe & The Fish

Country Joe and The Fish were one of the many "psychedelic" bands to emerge from the San Francisco Bay Area during the hippie explosion of 1966-67. They differed from most of their contemporaries (among them Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Grateful Dead and the Quicksilver Messenger Service) in having a backgound in the student movememt centred on the University of California in Berkeley, which lent a political edge to their songs. Most of them were written by band leader and singer Joe McDonald, who, unlike the majority of apolitical, middle-class hippies, came from a left-wing family and inherited a concern for social justice from his Communist parents. thumb|250px|right|Monterey: Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine Country Joe and the Fish lasted until 1971, but their heyday was from 1967 to 1969, with the first two albums Electric Music for the Mind and Body and I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die establishing their reputation. They are featured in both Monterey Pop, D.A. Pennebaker's documentary film of the 1967 festival, and Michael Wadleigh's Woodstock, which also contains Country Joe's famous rendition of his "Fish Cheer" ("Gimme an F...") and his anti-Vietnam War song "Fixin' To Die Rag". They visited Britain several times in this period, although their performances (at underground venues like Middle Earth and the Roundhouse) were not heavily publicised. In the 1970s Country Joe McDonald returned to his roots as an activist folk singer and worked mostly as a solo artist, in which capacity he recorded a session for Top Gear in 1970.

Although San Francisco was renowned as the home of the hippie movement, it was the Los Angeles groups who had made "West Coast" music popular thumb|250px|left|Woodstock: Fish Cheer/Fixin' To Diewith the audience who listened to John Peel on Radio London - the Byrds, Love, the Doors, the Buffalo Springfield and more pop-oriented acts like the Beach Boys, the Mamas and Papas and the Association. One of the first "San Francisco" albums featured by Peel on his Perfumed Garden show was Electric Music for the Mind and Body, at the time only available as an import on Vanguard Records (although a British release of the LP on Fontana soon followed). He was particularly taken with the track "Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine", which he played regularly (it appears twice as a show-opener on surviving recordings of the Perfumed Garden). Lead guitarist Barry Melton became one of Peel's favourite musicians, and his work on the second album I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die was singled out for high praise when Peel played it on Top Gear in 1968.

Later Peel recalled that Electric Music for the Mind and Body was the soundtrack to his one deliberate LSD trip, at UFO Club in 1967 ("It was jolly nice. I've always rather flippantly said it was rather like going to Stratford-on-Avon: once you'd done it I didn't see any need to do it again". Quoted by Jonathon Green in Days in the Life, London 1988). In his later years, Peel stated that Electric Music for the Mind and Body was the one album of 1967 he could still listen to for pleasure (for example, see Peeling Back The Years 2 (Transcript)).

Festive Fifty Entries

 * None

Sessions
1. Recorded: 1970-06-29. First broadcast: 04 July 1970. Repeated: ? 2. Recorded: 1972-05-08. First broadcast: 02 June 1972. Repeated: 28 July 1972 (including first play of "Memories")
 * Three sessions. Any commercial release of sessions?
 * Hold On, It's Coming / Balancing On The Edge Of Time / It's So Nice To Have Love / Maria / Tell Me Where You're Bound
 * Hold On, It's Coming / Colleen Ann / Fantasy / Memories

3. Recorded: 1977-06-29. First broadcast: 11 July 1977. Repeated: ? (Please correct mistakes and add any missing info)
 * Get It Together / Tricky Dicky / Sweet Lorraine / Save The Whales / La-Di-Dar / The Man From Atharbaska

Other Shows Played
The listing below was researched from the database of this site and is incomplete. Please add any further information if known.


 * 16 July 1967: The Masked Marauder (LP - Electric Music for the Mind and Body) Vanguard - Peel is undone by this track's false ending
 * 18 July 1967: Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine (LP - Electric Music For The Mind And Body) Vanguard
 * 19 July 1967: Porpoise Mouth (LP - Electric Music For The Mind And Body) Vanguard - JP: "Hope it's not necessary to explain why that's called Porpoise Mouth..."
 * 06 August 1967: Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine (LP: Electric Music For The Mind And Body) Vanguard
 * 14 August 1967: Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine (LP - Electric Music For The Mind And Body) Vanguard
 * 31 December 1967: Porpoise Mouth (LP - Electric Music for the Mind and Body) Fontana
 * 19 March 1980: Porpoise Mouth (LP – Electric Music For The Mind And Body) Peel describes the album as “the definitive flower power LP, if you must”
 * 02 April 1980: Silver And Gold (LP - C.J. Fish)
 * 03 November 1999: Pat's Song (Peelenium 1967)
 * 15 August 2000: Pat's Song (LP - I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die) Fontana - JP recalls a weekend with the band in London and BIrmingham in 1969
 * 29 January 2003: Pat's Song (LP- I Feel Like I'm Fixin to Die) Fontana
 * 20 February 2003: Silver And Gold (LP - C.J. Fish) Vanguard
 * 05 March 2003: Pat's Song (LP- I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die) Vanguard
 * 22 October 2003: Silver and Gold (LP- C.J. Fish) Vanguard
 * 22 January 2004: Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine (LP - Electric Music The Mind & Body) Vanguard


 * Other
 * Peeling Back The Years (programme 2): Porpoise Mouth (LP – Electric Music For The Mind And Body)