The fantasy Rambo is in, but the reality of what it means to be soldiering is not in. There are conflicting reports about when McDonald performed at Woodstock. In April of 1971, Joe agreed to take part in coast-to-coast anti war demonstrations. . Day 2 at Woodstock meant the rock bands were up, and the seventh act to appear at Woodstock on Saturday August 16, 1969 was Canned Heat. Issue number one of the magazine was a talking version released as an EP, with 100 copies produced. The court, however, upheld McDonald's laches defense, noting that Ory and her father were aware of the original version of the song, with the same questionable section, for some three decades without bringing a suit. Since decades had already passed from the time McDonald composed his song in 1965, Ory based her suit on a new version of it recorded by McDonald in 1999. McDonald's has cut prices of one of it's most popular menu items for this Bank Holiday Monday (pictured) View gallery. However, she stressed that the Welcome Home event will not be a look back at tragedy, but rather a positive step forward. They also had a penchant for self-promotion and printed up posters and calendars using the style of the times. King as she encouraged G.I.s to lay down their weapons. Ring of Fire, Nowhere to Run, Riders on the Storm all of them shifted shape in relation to the war. In 2005, McDonald joined a larger protest against California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed budget cuts at the California State Capitol Building. Satisfactory10. The group organized by Fonda and actor Donald Sutherland featured theater skits created by Ann and Roger Bowen, alumnae of the famed Chicago improvisation group "Second City". I was tied up at the time, the late Sen. John McCain famously said in 2007. With anti-military sentiments at a high, Country Joe McDonald steps up to the microphone, but instead of launching into his anti-war anthem Feel-Like-Im-Fixin-to-Die Rag, he tells the 300,000 members of Woodstock Nation that hes a veteran of military service--and hes proud of it. Ever wonder who played at Woodstock? It was at Woodstock that McDonald, whose band Country Joe & the Fish had risen to prominence on the San Francisco psychedelic scene, inadvertently became a counter-culture spokesman. "It was like a mini-Woodstock to a lot of people," says Ethel Beatty Barnes, who saw the Sly and the Family Stone concert that July, when she was an 18-year-old New Yorker. He befriended members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, including conscientious objectors who were sent over as unarmed medics, only to find themselves in the thick of combat. Since then, titles such as Superstitious Blues and Thank the Nurse have emerged from the Rag Baby label. In 1969, a warrant was issued for Mr. McDonalds arrest for inciting an audience to lewd behavior in Worcester, Mass. It became an underground favorite throughout Europe and the title track is still played on French radio. Fish which with a new keyboard player and rhythm section was produced by Tom Wilson. Opposition to the draft helped fuel the sounds of protest Draft Dodger Rag, Universal Soldier, It Aint Me Babe. But they were songs we G.I.s knew and often sang in Vietnam. By Joe McDonald, AP Thursday, Apr 27 FILE - China's President Xi Jinping arrives to attend the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, APEC summit, Nov. 19 . He did say that! While appearing in New York, Vanguard recorded a series of shows at the Bitter End nightclub in Greenwich Village. He sang one of the great anthems of the era, "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag," to an audience of half-million at the Woodstock Arts and Music Festival in 1969. More than any other American war, Vietnam had a soundtrack, and you listened to it whether you were marching in the jungle or in the streets. I was kind of their mascot. However, McDonald was determined to get the Woodstock audience pumped up and excited for the rest of the day. Mostly as a vehicle for raising money for Vietnam Veterans Against The War, it featured members of local band Grootna and pointed political songs included the anti-draft "Kiss My Ass." The song "Making A Movie In Chile" was released on Joe's last album for Vanguard Country Joe later on in 1974. Joe at 18 mos. When McDonald called out for an "F" and then a "U," instead of an "F" and then an "I," the Woodstock audience went wild. (hed eventually pay a $500 fine). Born a red-diaper baby he was named after Joseph Stalin he grew up in a Communist. McDonald makes it clear, though, that the veterans issue is not just one of a long list of causes for him, and that it is vitally linked to his first cause: peace. We can make some of it into a sociological thing, and some of it we can make into the fact 15-year-old boys like to curse.. In the early 1960s, he began busking on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, California. One for sure was Hendrix and his version of "The Star Spangled Banner." Although the crowd loved it, the management of the Schaefer Beer Festival did not and kicked the band off the tour for life. Joe McDonald may have written the most in-your-face anti-war, anti-military song to come out of the '60s, but he was also one of the very few musicians on the San Francisco scene who'd served in uniform. But Beatty Barnes feels the city-sponsored Harlem festival, which was showcased in two network TV specials, showed people didn't have to go far to come together around music. "It was embarking onto 'what do we have already here where we can have people gather?'" Sometimes the music was live: soldiers strumming out Bob Dylan and Curtis Mayfield songs at base camps; Filipino bands pounding out Proud Mary and Soul Man at enlisted-mens clubs and Saigon bars; touring acts from Bob Hope and Ann-Margret to Nancy Sinatra and James Brown granting momentary calm. It was haunted by military intelligence and the FBI though curiously not to the point of actually disrupting its activities -- just a subtle presence, and one which rewarded Joe with a spot on President Richard Nixon's enemies list. Despite his activism, McDonald has never pursued a career in politics, preferring to remain "the guy who sang the songs, pointed out the wrongs; not the guy who fixed them.". ED, who also wrote for the weekly Berkeley Barb, concocted with Joe the idea of letting the audience know what was happening at all times; so they took out a 52 week 1/4 page ad in the Barb informing their audience where they were going to be in the coming week -- even if it was in Canada. Find album reviews, track lists, credits, awards and more at AllMusic. The show went on to make a film of a Far Eastern tour, F.T.A., released theatrically in '72, then withdrawn. They skipped the chant that night, but according to a story Mr. McDonald told on a live album, he shouted the expletive at the cops right after the show. Tom Weller, "artist in residence," created these images. Much of the band's music was written by founding members Country Joe McDonald and Barry "The Fish" Melton, with lyrics pointedly addressing issues of importance to the counterculture . It consisted of rear-screen projections of images, slides and liquids, containing colors swirled in water and oil producing paisley patterns on a screen suspended behind the band and creating a uniquely "psychedelic" experience. Woweven today, that gives me chills. For those who watched the war unfold on the evening news, the music of Vietnam blurred with the sounds rising from the streets of America during a time of momentous challenge and change. This series highlights the artists who performed at Woodstock August 15-18, 1969. Its been impossible for the mainstream to treat it in a noncontroversial way, even now, which is odd when you think of rap and grunge, but the cheer and the song married together made it art., By the time Mr. McDonald got to Woodstock, the cheer was well known among Manhattan hippie circles through the Central Park performance, bootleg recordings and underground radio, and thousands of his fans in New York made the trek to the festival. Although his parents would later renounce Communism, Mr. McDonald had already seen firsthand how people could pay a price for their beliefs. But what she remembers most was happening in the crowd concertgoers meeting each other, sharing what they had, playing guitars together. It worked the other way, too Vietnam and the dizzying changes accompanying it in America altered the music, the musicians and the messages. Bruce Lint (L) of Meriden, Connecticut and another Marine (unidentified) provide a little musical entertainment for fellow leathernecks at a fortress in northwestern south Vietnam. "Patriots: the Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides", Christian G. Appy, p. 196. . The crowd at Woodstock, half a million strong, rose to their feet and joined in Country Joe McDonalds antiwar war cry, chanting along from the opening expletive all the way to the Whoopee! In Worcester, Massachusetts, McDonald was arrested for obscenity and fined $500 for uttering "fuck" in public. This series of articles32 in allcovers each of the artists who performed at the original Woodstock festival August 1518, 1969. Captured in Michael Wadleighs Oscar-winning 1970 documentary Woodstock, the three rousing minutes of Mr. McDonalds acoustic version of The Fish Cheer/I-Feel-Like-Im-Fixin-to-Die Rag became the premier Vietnam War protest anthem. While working with and about military nurses Joe became increasingly aware of the figure who could have been the first military nurse -- Florence Nightingale. The cheer became popular and the crowd would spell out F-I-S-H when the band performed live. [19], McDonald has four other children, Devin (b. : photo: Worden McDonald, 1943; Joe and Family: Florence, Billy, Joe, MAC, at Naval Basic Training, San Diego, CA; photo: Nancy McDonald, 1960; Berkeley String Quartet: Carl Shrager, Bob Cooper, Joe, Bill Steele; photographer unknown, 1965; The Lundbergs: Travis T. Hipp, Dierdre and Jon Lundberg; photographer unknown, 1965? Rock n roll, soul, pop and country. [2] His father, Worden McDonald, from Oklahoma, was of Scottish Presbyterian heritage (the son of a minister) and worked for a telephone company. 5. Jefferson Airplane had finished their set just after 08:00 a.m., allowing the crowd to finally get some shut-eye. The band has performed It, along with "Masked Marauder" and the other instrumental added to the album "Section 43," were notable in that they were instrumentals and were not only played on the radio, but played in performance as well. He found himself banned from appearing at most municipal buildings due to the "Fish Cheer" and a reputation of a performer with an "attitude," mostly due to outspoken political views, and his to the point, but off-color topical songs. They appeared on Day 3 of the festival. From "The Fish Cheer / I-Feel-Like-Im-Fixin-to-Die Rag". In 1966, Mr. McDonald and his partner Barry Melton, whose nickname was the Fish, decided to move away from their folk music style and form a full-time rock band. 4. 1. Ever wonder who played at Woodstock? The first Country Joe and the Fish record was released in 1965, in time for the Vietnam Day Teach-In anti-war protest in Berkeley, California. His remark an allusion to his 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam got a standing ovation from a Republican presidential primary debate audience.