Country Joe and the Fish was a rock music/folk music band known for musical… Read Full Bio ↴Country Joe and the Fish was a rock music/folk music band known for musical protests against the Vietnam War, from 1965 to 1970.
The lead singer was "Country" Joe McDonald. The lead guitarist was Barry "The Fish" Melton. Co-founders McDonald and Melton added musicians as needed over the life of the band.
The band was an early example of Psychedelic music. The LP "Electric Music for the Mind and Body" was very influential on early FM Radio in 1967. Long sets of psychedelic tunes like "Section 43", "Bass Strings", "Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine", "Janis" (for and about Janis Joplin) and "Grace" (all released on Vanguard Records) were often played back to back on KSAN and KMPX in San Francisco and progressive rock stations around the country. Country Joe and The Fish were regulars at Fillmore West and East and the Family Dog at the Avalon. They were billed with such groups as Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Led Zeppelin, and Iron Butterfly. They played at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and at the Woodstock Festival in 1969. In 1971 the band appeared in a Western film starring Don Johnson as an outlaw gang called the Crackers. The film, entitled Zachariah, was written by the Firesign Theater and was billed as "The First Electric Western". They also appeared in the George Lucas film More American Graffiti.
Their biggest hit was the anti-war "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag", which debuted the same year of the band, but became best known after Country Joe's solo acoustic performance of it at Woodstock. Country Joe was involved with legal disputes with the family of Kid Ory due to the tune's similarity to Ory's Dixieland jazz standard "Muskrat Ramble". In August of 2003, the court case was decided in Joe's favor due to the long time between the debut of "Fixin' to Die" and the first legal claim against it by Ory's family. (Copyright on Country Joe's song was registered in 1968, and Babette Ory registered her father's 1926 song in 2001.)
Barry Melton was later a founding member of The Dinosaurs and has recently released new recordings of that band whose members included Peter Albin from Big Brother and The Holding Company and John Cipollina from Quicksilver Messenger Service and Copperhead.
The lead singer was "Country" Joe McDonald. The lead guitarist was Barry "The Fish" Melton. Co-founders McDonald and Melton added musicians as needed over the life of the band.
The band was an early example of Psychedelic music. The LP "Electric Music for the Mind and Body" was very influential on early FM Radio in 1967. Long sets of psychedelic tunes like "Section 43", "Bass Strings", "Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine", "Janis" (for and about Janis Joplin) and "Grace" (all released on Vanguard Records) were often played back to back on KSAN and KMPX in San Francisco and progressive rock stations around the country. Country Joe and The Fish were regulars at Fillmore West and East and the Family Dog at the Avalon. They were billed with such groups as Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Led Zeppelin, and Iron Butterfly. They played at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and at the Woodstock Festival in 1969. In 1971 the band appeared in a Western film starring Don Johnson as an outlaw gang called the Crackers. The film, entitled Zachariah, was written by the Firesign Theater and was billed as "The First Electric Western". They also appeared in the George Lucas film More American Graffiti.
Their biggest hit was the anti-war "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag", which debuted the same year of the band, but became best known after Country Joe's solo acoustic performance of it at Woodstock. Country Joe was involved with legal disputes with the family of Kid Ory due to the tune's similarity to Ory's Dixieland jazz standard "Muskrat Ramble". In August of 2003, the court case was decided in Joe's favor due to the long time between the debut of "Fixin' to Die" and the first legal claim against it by Ory's family. (Copyright on Country Joe's song was registered in 1968, and Babette Ory registered her father's 1926 song in 2001.)
Barry Melton was later a founding member of The Dinosaurs and has recently released new recordings of that band whose members included Peter Albin from Big Brother and The Holding Company and John Cipollina from Quicksilver Messenger Service and Copperhead.
Section 43
Country Joe & The Fish Lyrics
Instrumental
To comment on or correct specific content, highlight it
More Genres
No Artists Found
More Artists
Load All
No Albums Found
More Albums
Load All
No Tracks Found
Genre not found
Artist not found
Album not found
Search results not found
Song not found
@suginami123
The most underestimated great band that ever existed. Magical music. I’m still in love many year later.
@jarodcarnarvon5198
Just love the psychedelic music of the mid to late 60s, there's not anything else like it ever!!!!!!
@daubreyjaneweirdsley
Section 43 is at the centre of a sublime, flawless album, that's arguably the greatest psychedelic instrumental to come out of the San Francisco scene. Like 'Eight Miles High,' but structurally looser, Section 43 becomes both a literal and metaphorical statement of chemically assisted boundless freedom, tinged with an edge of melancholy and regret. With its wheezy, acid drenched, fairground, farfisa organ - "Carving deep blue ripples in the tissues of your mind" - and its multi tracked raga rock guitars; Section 43 charts the peaks, the longueurs, the dissolving ego into a collapsing universe of lysergic ecstasy. All luminous fog, shimmering space, time shifts and possibilities. It carries the moment like nothing else. Spaced out wonder in the everlasting moment!!!!
@prpluv
You succinctly described my various lysergic explorations led by this particular piece (and Grace), and the album in general...it put the sunshine in Sunshine.. Janis and particularly Thursday/Eastern Jam were other platforms for surfing the Crest of Now......
@hippydippy
I agree & would had "The Fool" by Quicksilver as well.
@gerrysmith1782
wow heavy stuff but agree
@bonzeblayk
uh-huh.
Always liked the Fish, but never dropped?
"My idea of Roots Music is BLUE CHEER!" ... and Sopwith Camel?
LOL
- Carla Yadda Yadda Yadda Satana
@j.morrison73
Awesome take. Let's not forget 'your porpoise mouth'. I was 17 when an older friend of mine told me the meaning. What a great year for the acid era.
@suginami123
Marvelous and with the whole album it’s one of the greatest albums of modern music. Delicate and intricate.
@deweyfischer6118
I was 13 years old when I was given a promo copy of this album in 1967. It changed my perception on what Rock music was. At 62 I still listen to it and other CJ Fish albums