9. März 2026
ZUM TOD DES US-AMERIKANISCHEN FOLK- UND ROCK-SÄNGERS, GITARRISTEN UND SONGWRITERS COUNTRY JOE MCDONALD
Der am 1. Januar 1942 als Joseph McDonald geborene US-amerikanische Folk- und Rocksänger, Gitarrist und Songwriter Country Joe McDonald (Bild) ist am 7. März 2026 in Berkley (Kalifornien) gestorben. 1965 gründete er die Gruppe Country Joe and the Fish; er wurde 1969 bekannt durch seinen Auftritt auf dem Woodstock-Festival mit dem «Fish»-Cheer und dem «I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag». In seiner jahrzehntelangen Musikerlaufbahn brachte er rund 40 Musikalben heraus und schrieb Hunderte von Songs. (*)
Bild: Country Joe McDonald, 2007 – Foto: Thom C, https://www.flickr.com/photos/38008469@N00/1811206487/ – Lizenz: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en – Datei: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Country_Joe_McDonald_at_Passim.jpg
‘Country Joe’ McDonald, Who Urged the Crowd at the ’69 Woodstock Festival to ‘Gimme an F,’ Dies
In a Nov. 2024 feature story for Best Classic Bands—“Country Joe is More Than Woodstock—About 40 Albums More”—writer Rip Rense noted that McDonald wrote and recorded somewhere around 40 albums in all, not including the landmark ’60s psychedelic masterworks by Country Joe and the Fish, played and toured constantly, and lent his voice to cause after cause, from opposing war to advocating for military veterans, nurses, animals and the ecosystem.
“He [was] a master of the piquant ballad, a scion of the sardonic sung commentary, a pioneer of the psychedelic, a wit-meister of the comic ditty, an avatar of music-as-activism, and a poet,” Rense wrote.
Greg Brodsky
https://bestclassicbands.com/country-joe-mcdonald-obituary-1969-woodstock-festival-3-8-26/
“Country” Joe McDonald, Countercultural Icon and Hero of Woodstock, Dead at 84
McDonald’s father taught him to play guitar at age 7. Ten years later, he joined the U.S. Navy to “see the world and have sex.” Once his time was up, he tried his hand at college, but ultimately dropped out and moved to California “to become a beatnik,” he told Let It Rock.
In 1965, he formed Country Joe and the Fish. Like his birth name, the band’s name had Communist origins. McDonald took “Country Joe” from a nickname bestowed upon Stalin due to his rural background. “Fish” came from Mao Zedong, who wrote that revolutionaries “must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.”
Erinn Callahan
Country Joe McDonald’s Final Rolling Stone Interview: ‘Woodstock Changed Everything’
The late singer explained how his legendary Woodstock moment came to be in a never-before-published 2019 interview with Rolling Stone
In 2019, Country Joe McDonald called into the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast to discuss the 50th anniversary of his career-making performance at Woodstock. In what turned out to be his final interview with Rolling Stone, he discussed his memories of the festival and much more. In the wake of McDonald’s death at age 84, here’s that full conversation, published here for the first time.
Country Joe McDonald, Whose Antiwar Song Became an Anthem, Dies at 84
One of the starring acts at Woodstock, he and his band, the Fish, came out of the Bay Area’s psychedelic rock scene. He went on to a long career as a solo artist.
Country Joe McDonald, whose performance at Woodstock — in which he led a crowd of 400,000 through a subversive cheer before starting his satirical antiwar song “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag” — struck a chord so deep, it often obscured the variety and scope of his career, died on Saturday at his home in Berkeley, Calif.
In his breakthrough years, Mr. McDonald led Country Joe and the Fish, one of the first and most adventurous bands to rise from the Bay Area psychedelic rock scene of the 1960s. After the band’s main run ended in 1970, he released scores of solo albums in a number of styles over many decades.
Jim Farber
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/08/arts/music/country-joe-mcdonald-dead.html
Country Joe McDonald, anti-war singer who electrified Woodstock, dies at 84
Although he became widely known for his opposition to the Vietnam War, McDonald frequently emphasized respect for those who served in the U.S. military. After his own service in the Navy, he remained engaged with veterans‘ issues and occasionally performed at events connected to veterans and their experiences, according to his website biography.
Willem Marx
https://www.npr.org/2026/03/08/nx-s1-5741805/country-joe-mcdonald-woodstock-vietnam-protest
Country Joe McDonald, Woodstock Star Who Found Counterculture Fame With ‘I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag,’ Dies at 84
Of his famous protest song, McDonald told the Street Spirit website, “The important thing about the ‘Fixin’ to Die Rag’ was that it had a new point of view that did not blame soldiers for war. It just blamed the politicians and it blamed the manufacturers of weapons. It didn’t blame the soldiers. Someone who was in the military could sing the song, and the attitude is, ‘Whoopee, we’re all going to die.’ Most peace songs of the era blamed the soldiers for the war.”
Chris Willman
Woodstock star and anti-war singer
Born in 1942 in Washington DC and raised in El Monte, California, McDonald began writing songs as a teenager, when he taught himself folk, blues and country songs on guitar.
As a musician, he was a longtime presence in the Bay Area scene, where peers included the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson Airplane and his one-time girlfriend, Janis Joplin. He wrote or co-wrote hundreds of songs, from psychedelic jams to soul-influenced rockers, and released dozens of albums.
But he was known best for a talking blues track he completed in less than an hour in 1965 – the year the then US president, Lyndon Johnson, began sending ground forces to Vietnam.
In the deadpan style of McDonald’s hero, Woody Guthrie, I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag was a mock celebration of war and early, senseless death.
Muere a los 84 años Country Joe McDonald, ícono del rock de protesta de los años 60
El artista se convirtió en una figura clave de la contracultura gracias a la canción ‚I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin‘-To-Die Rag‘, una sátira mordaz sobre la guerra de Vietnam.
En su vida personal, McDonald se casó cuatro veces y tuvo cinco hijos. Durante un tiempo mantuvo una relación con la cantante Janis Joplin. Con el paso de los años siguió vinculado al activismo y, en la década de 1990, ayudó a impulsar un monumento a los veteranos de Vietnam en Berkeley, en un gesto que simbolizaba la reconciliación tras los años de conflicto.
AP
https://www.elmundo.es/cultura/musica/2026/03/09/69ae8c28fc6c830f438b4589.html
Country Joe McDonald, morto a 84 anni il cantautore di protesta che incendiò Woodstock
A metà degli anni 60 fondò insieme al chitarrista Barry Melton i Country Joe & The fish, che in breve divenne una della band simbolo della controcultura di quegli anni grazie alla militanza politica e per l’uso della musica come strumento di lotta. Il debutto arrivò nel 1965, con l’Ep autoprodotto pubblicato dalla rivista militante Rag Baby. Poi il primo album ufficiale, pubblicato dall’etichetta Vanguard, che ne definì lo stile indirizzato verso una allora attualissima formula di folk-rock in chiave psichedelica.
Andrea Silenzi
Mort de Country Joe McDonald, légende de la scène folk engagée contre la guerre du Vietnam
Country Joe McDonald et son morceau I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin-To-Die Rag font partie de ces formes imprécises, curieuses et intrigantes, qui hantent les marges de la musique populaire américaine depuis des décennies – du moins pour le grand public français. Pour les autres, qui décortiquent notes de pochettes et crédits d’enregistrement, Country Joe McDonald est une authentique légende de la scène de San Francisco, satellite omniprésent gravitant à proximité du Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane ou Janis Joplin, dont il a été un temps le compagnon. Un genre de Bob Dylan première mouture – folk et chansons ouvertement politisées – profondément marqué lui aussi par Woody Guthrie (auquel il a consacré un album en 1969), mais aux inflexions plus blues et psychédéliques.
Jimmy Batista
Zum Tod des Sängers Country Joe McDonald
Auf seiner Website steht noch immer, er lebe in Berkeley, Kalifornien, Planet Erde. Wer weiß, wo er die Leser vermutet hat, und wer weiß, auf welchem Planeten unsere Internetseiten dereinst ausgewertet werden? Joseph McDonald, besser bekannt durch seinen Bühnennamen Country Joe, hat Musik für irre Trips gemacht, schon Jahre bevor das space age rockmusikalisch so richtig losging mit David Bowies Major Tom und Pink Floyds Reise zur dunklen Seite des Mondes.
Jan Wiele
Der Sänger Country Joe McDonald, ein Freund wilder Flüche, ist tot: «F-U-C-K»
Anfang 1942 wurde einem amerikanischen Kommunistenpaar ein Sohn geboren, den sie in die Wiege legten und ihm den Namen Joe gaben, Joe wie Stalin. Ein halbes Jahr zuvor hatte der deutsche Überfall auf die Sowjetunion begonnen, das sogenannte „Unternehmen Barbarossa“, und aus dem Führer der Sowjetunion wurde für die Amerikaner notgedrungen der liebe Uncle Joe. Das Kind wuchs und gedieh, die Eltern konnten die Verfolgung durch Joe McCarthy nur knapp überstehen, aber der Sohn entlief mit siebzehn zur Navy, in der er drei Jahre diente.
Willi Winkler
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/country-joe-mcdonald-tot-nachruf-f-u-c-k-li.3449565?reduced=true
Er machte das Wort „F**k“ aussprechbar: Country Joe McDonald ist tot
Heute wird das Wort „fuck“ inflationär verwendet, vor 57 Jahren war es vor allem in Amerika völlig tabuisiert. Dass sich das geändert hat, daran war der Folksänger Joseph McDonald vulgo Country Joe McDonald wesentlich beteiligt: mit seinem „Fuck Cheer“, den er am 16. August 1969 beim Woodstock-Festival skandierte, was ihm eine Gefängnisstrafe wegen Anstiftung des Publikums zu unzüchtigem Benehmen einbrachte.
Thomas Kramar
https://www.diepresse.com/20659605/er-machte-das-wort-fk-aussprechbar-country-joe-mcdonald-ist-tot
Eine der zentralen Figuren der Gegenkultur der 1960er-Jahre
Country Joe McDonald verstand Protest nicht als Doktrin, sondern als Haltung, die Widersprüche aushält – und über sie lacht. Der «Fixin’-to-Die Rag» sei ein Moment gewesen, in dem das Publikum gespürt habe, wie man gleichzeitig über den Krieg, über sich selbst und über die Linke lachen könne, sagte er einmal. Das sei verführerisch – und in seinem Kern «verrückt».
Simon Angelo Meier
https://www.derbund.ch/country-joe-mcdonald-woodstock-legende-mit-84-gestorben-119680122962
Videos:
Country Joe & the Fish – VietNam Song – Live Woodstock 1969 – Full HD Video
Country Joe & The Fish – Rock & Soul Music *live at Woodstock HD
Country Joe & the Fish Live at the Monterey Pop Festival ’67
Country Joe McDonald – Full Concert – 10/27/73 – Winterland (OFFICIAL)
1960s Rebels: Country Joe McDonald – Musician, Country Joe and the Fish
Mehr:
https://www.facebook.com/joe.mcdonald.5011
https://people.well.com/user/cjfish/
https://countryjoe.com/cjmbio.htm
https://www.nndb.com/people/375/000024303/
https://archive.org/details/CountryJoeMcDonald
https://www.bethelwoodscenter.org/news/detail/country-joe-mcdonald-50-years-of-peace-music
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/country-joe-mcdonald-mn0000131285
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/country-joe-the-fish-mn0000128266
https://www.discogs.com/de/artist/273136-Country-Joe-McDonald
https://www.imdb.com/de/name/nm0567710/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_Joe_McDonald
(*) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_Joe_McDonald
#CountryJoeMcDonald #CountryJoAndTheFish #CHcultura @CHculturaCH ∆cultura cultura+
Kommentare von Daniel Leutenegger