Country Joe & The Fish were old school, west coast hippies who grew out of the folk music tradition to became full-blown, freak-flag-flying, fuck-the-establishment psychedelic pranksters. The band became notorious for their "fish cheer" (it once got them arrested for inciting their audience to lewd behavior), but their music was, for a brief time, among the best to emerge from the vaunted late 60's San Francisco scene. Country Joe McDonald and his band (most notably cofounder Barry Melton) created records as smart as they were psychedelic. At their best, Fish records were more than blissed-out meanderings - they were smart, funny, political, and musically accomplished. The Fish dabbled in drug-addled nonsense, too, but that was to be expected during the indulgent Age of Aquarius....

McDonald and Melton created Country Joe & The Fish as an acoustic jug band in 1965, and the group began recording for Takoma soon thereafter. The Fish had gone electric by 1966, and their first full-length album, Electric Music For The Mind & Body (Vanguard Records, 1967), proved a classic of psychedelia. An appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival later that year put the Fish on the map, and their next album, I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die (1967) produced the band's best-known song in the title song, a ragtime-flavored Vietnam War protest. Together (1968) was a strong effort, but the band was already disintegrating by the time McDonald led the infamous cheer at Woodstock in 1969. Two dispirited albums followed before the Fish split for good, with McDonald commencing a prolific solo career (c.f. Best Of Country Joe McDonald 1969-1975, 1990).

It would be easy to file Country Joe & The Fish under "music for old hippies," but legions of younger fans have discovered this sort of music by way of Phish or the Dave Matthews Band. Unlike the Grateful Dead, however, Country Joe and the boys have remained an artifact of their times, unjustly ignored by the new generation of jam bands. Nevertheless, those early albums are highly recommended for their mind-blowing potential, while Vanguard's The Collected Country Joe & the Fish 1965 to 1970 (1987) is an ideal introduction for fans who've blown all their bread on weed.